NPP scales through Ejisu by-election

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) contended with the biggest threat to the Ejisu parliamentary seat last Tuesday as the party’s candidate, Kwabena Boateng, only scraped past independent candidate, Kwabena Owusu Aduomi, in the by-election.

With 27,782 votes, representing 55.79 per cent of the total votes, the NPP received its lowest tally in parliamentary polls in the constituency considered one of its safest seats in the legislature.

Instead, it was former three-term Member of Parliament (MP) and former member of the NPP, Mr Aduomi, who received 21,536 votes, representing 43.24 per cent of the total valid votes cast, who threatened to cause one of the biggest upsets in local parliamentary elections as he gave his former party a run for its money.

Until the by-election, the highest percentage a candidate had ever obtained against the NPP was about 18 per cent, which was obtained by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the last parliamentary elections. The NDC declined to contest the by-election.

Other candidates

The combined effort of the four other candidates did not add up to one per cent of the total votes. Independent candidates — Joseph Fredua Agyemang and Joseph Attakora — polled 222 votes and 23 votes respectively, representing 0.45 per cent and 0.05 per cent of the total votes cast; Esther Osei of the Convention People’s Party had 89 votes, which was about 0.18 per cent, while Beatrice Boakye of the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG) had 149 votes, representing 0.30 per cent of the votes.

With the exception of Fredua Agyemang, who was at the collation centre, the rest of the losing candidates did not show up for the declaration of the results.

Turnout

The constituency has 106,812 registered voters, but only 50,218 turned out to vote, representing 47.02 per cent of the voter population. There were very little queues at the polling centres, and the electorate had free access to the centres devoid of any challenges.

Security

There was a heavy police presence within the constituency, with a lot of police personnel at every polling station. There were also standby forces positioned at strategic points to complement the work of the patrol teams that were moving from centre to centre to ensure peace throughout the process.

Rumours of vote buying were rife throughout the process, with some candidates allegedly giving money to the electorate to vote for them. The video of the Member of Parliament for Kwadaso, Dr Kingsley Nyarko, seemingly giving an envelope suspected to contain money to some electoral officers at one of the polling stations at Fumesua, seemed to have lent credence to the allegation.

At the Ejisu Roman Catholic School Polling Centre, some electorate openly confessed to collecting money from some party officials after casting their ballot. The electorate first confirmed their names from the polling station album, and after voting, went for the money.

One woman complained on top of her voice that she would not vote if she was not paid. She claimed to have left her noodles fast food business to follow the campaign trail for three days, and needed to be paid for the time lost.

Improvement

Even before the closure of the polls, the leader of the LPG, Kofi Akpaloo, conceded that his candidate would not win the election, and that the party was not in to win. He said the objective was to test the popularity of the party in the constituency to prepare for the December election.

In the last presidential election, as a candidate, he polled eight votes in the constituency, and said the aim was to improve on that during this by-election.