The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has said it is repositioning itself to overturn the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) monopoly over the Northern Region as its electoral World Bank.
The NPP has declared its intention to win 17 out of the 31 Parliamentary seats during the 2016 general elections.
[contextly_sidebar id=”bLR1TZl6kaKsFBYlKXLnxRP2dwsptci0″]The party’s Regional Secretary, Sule Salifu told Citi News in an interview that, “In fact, the number of seats that we are very sure of winning I can confidently tell you that we are targeting between seven to 10 seats but for now we are sure of seven additional seats.”
He posited, “We have done our research, stealing was one of the issues that affected us in these constituencies and the caliber of agents that we now have to monitor the elections in those areas would not allow any more stealing in these areas and again the kind of candidates that are actually competing should any of them win the primaries then the NPP will certainly win the election.”
Since 1992 because of the NDC founder, Jerry John Rawlings’s track record in the Northern Region, the party has over the years overwhelmingly won both the Presidential and Parliamentary elections in the area.
With President John Dramani Mahama then as the NDC’s Presidential candidate for the 2012 general elections, it was anticipated that the party would have swept all the 31 Parliamentary seats in his home region.
However, the dynamics slightly changed when the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) moved from three to 10 Parliamentary seats in the Northern Region.
The party surprisingly won seven additional seats with 383,283 of the total votes cast in the entire Northern Region.
Majority of the seats are in the Eastern Corridor including Yendi, Bimbila, Zabzugu, Tatale, Bunkprugu, Chereponi and Kpandai.
The rest are Tolon, Walewale and Yagba-Kubori.
Former Vice President, the late Alhaji Aliu Mahama, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia, Sheikh T.B Damba, Bugri Naabu and Alhaji Aminu Zohi-Limam were very instrumental in the success.
The NDC at the last elections won 21 Parliamentary seats in the Northern Region with a total of 570,602 votes cast.
The NPP Northern Regional Secretary admitted that majority of party members showing interest in the upcoming Parliamentary primaries cannot afford the filing fees pegged at GHC10,000.000 for orphan constituencies and GHC30,000.00 for constituencies where there are sitting Members of Parliament.
He bemoaned, “Up till date my office has always been invaded by these aspirants and they are in various categories: there are these candidates who contested the last election and they have the view that the party should have at least reduced their figure from GHC10, 000.00 to GHC5, 000.00 for them: we have a class of people who are also saying that they have been suffering and working hard for the party in their various constituencies but for them to be slapped with this GHC30,000,00, they have a difficulty in paying.”
Sule Salifu said the disillusioned Parliamentary aspirants impressed upon him to raise their concern at the NPP National Executive Committee meeting scheduled for Wednesday April 1, 2015.
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By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah/citifmonline.com/Ghana