The Ashanti Regional National Democratic Congress (NDC) is to launch ‘operation one million votes’ in the stronghold of the opposition NPP, Ashanti Region.
Daily Graphic has reported, the Regional Organiser of the party, Alhaji Sannie Abdulai, has pointed out that elections were not won on the day of voting, but rather “victory hinges on a long-term planning that is why we have to start now.”
He was addressing more than 300 party members at the end of a four-day training and trainers’ workshop ahead of the re-opening of the voters register. The limited voters registration exercise was scheduled to commence from June 20-29,2014, but had to be postponed to allow for further consultations between the Electoral Commission (EC) and its stakeholders.
Called the ‘World Bank”, the Ashanti Region is the political nerve centre of the NPP and reliable votes from the region has severely shaped the party as one of Ghana’s two big parties since the 4th Republic.
The NPP secured 1,531,152 representing 70.86% of total votes in the 2012 presidential elections. This figure is a drop from 74.39% in the re-run of 2008 presidential elections.
The NDC would be boosted knowing it obtained 612,616 votes representing 28.35% of total regional votes in the 2012 presidential elections. This results is approximately a 2.5% increase in the 2008 performance where it secured 25.61% in the presidential ballot.
According to Alhaji Abdulai, the regional secretariat of the NDC would soon roll out strategic plans to ensure that the party achieved its target of winning a million votes in the Ashanti Region.
As the NDC targets the NPP stronghold, the NPP is also hoping to improve its performance in the governing party’s stronghold of the Volta Region. The NPP lost the only parliamentary seat in the region – the Nkwanta North Constituency. This makes the Volta region the only region in which the NPP has no MP.
Despite poor performances, an NPP former Member of Parliament (MP) for Asokwa constituency, Maxwell Kofi Jumah, has predicted the New Patriotic Party will be raking in about 2 million votes from the region in the 2016 elections.
The NPP and NDC are the only parties that have governed the country since 1992.
Source: Daily Graphic