Odeneho Kwaku Appiah, an aspirant of the Ashanti Regional chairmanship position of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has observed that the party cannot break the eight-year cycle rule with the present state of affairs in the Ashanti Region, which was the backbone of the party.
He called for an effective change in the leadership of the party in the region.
That, Odeneho Appiah, the current NPP chairman of the Afigya-Kwabre South, explained, was the only way to reposition the region firmly as the stronghold of the party and regain its massive electoral votes which had always been the pivot of the party’s victories in elections.
“The electoral fortunes of the party in the region has been dwindled in the last two general elections as a result of bad leadership and ineffective approach in resolving issues at the grass root levels, rising incidents of members of the party standing as independent candidates in the 2020 parliamentary election should be of concern to all members who want to see a united front in the party in the region,” Odeneho Appiah cautioned.
He pointed out that, while the NPP’s electoral fortunes were going down in a region considered to be its main pillar, that of its rival, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was rising which should be worrisome to the leadership of the NPP.
Supporting his claims with statistics, Odeneho Appiah lamented that the party lost five parliamentary seats in the last elections in the region and while votes in the presidential election increased with a little over 100,000 votes and NDC increased more than 200,000 votes.
He said over three million people registered as voters in the region for the 2020 elections, but more than 500,000 of the people failed to vote in the region which is the stronghold of the NPP during the elections and indicated that the number of people who failed to vote were more than the number of voters in two regions combined.
“This seriously affected the NPP in the 2020 elections which should be of concern to all members to worry about”, Odeneho bemoaned, adding that “more than 34,000 spoilt ballots were counted in the region during the 2020 elections”.
FROM KINGSLEY E. HOPE, KUMASI
