{"id":272224,"date":"2016-11-28T13:30:29","date_gmt":"2016-11-28T13:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=272224"},"modified":"2016-11-28T13:30:29","modified_gmt":"2016-11-28T13:30:29","slug":"npp-ndc-battle-for-sekondi-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=272224","title":{"rendered":"NPP, NDC battle for Sekondi seat"},"content":{"rendered":"

The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), and the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), are battling to grab the Sekondi constituency in the Western Region in the December 7 general election.<\/p>\n

NPP has won the seat in five consecutive elections since 1996, with Papa Owusu-Ankomah, a former Majority Leader in Parliament and Minister of State occupying the seat for the whole period.<\/p>\n

However, the governing NDC has vowed to snatch it in the 2016 December 7 polls.<\/p>\n

Analysts say it will be a difficult task for the NDC to win the seat, which is considered to be one of the strongholds of the NPP.<\/p>\n

Both parties have new candidates contesting the December polls, after long-serving MP, Papa Owusu Ankomah, opted not to contest again.<\/p>\n

He has been\u00a0replaced by another lawyer, Andrew Agyapa Merker, who the residents say is a \u2018home boy.\u2019<\/p>\n

The governing NDC is also presenting Emmanuel Assifuah, an employee at the Western Regional Lands Commission, also known to have some suport in the area.<\/p>\n

Papa Owusu-Ankomah won the seat narrowly in 2012 with 14,735 votes, to beat the NDC’s candidate, Anthony Richard Cudjoe, who obtained 13,644.<\/p>\n

But speaking to Citi FM\u2019s Samurais<\/strong> on constituency watch ahead of the December polls, the Sekondi Constituency Chairman of the NPP, Erasmus Baidoo Cudjoe, said the party will win the 2016 polls with a wider margin.<\/p>\n

Samurais<\/strong> are Citi FM\u2019s<\/strong> pre-election monitory team in the Southern Sector of the country, looking at the issues that would decide the upcoming elections.<\/p>\n

The other team, known as the Delta Squad<\/strong> covered the Northern part of the country.<\/p>\n

\"Sekondi-Takoradi
Sekondi-Takoradi harbour<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to the NPP Constituency chairman, the gap between NPP and NDC was narrow because there was \u201cthis perception that Papa Owusu-Ankomah had stayed for too long and the people wanted him to rest. After the 2012 elections, we set up a committee to investigate why our votes have been dropping and the report was that our MP has been there for so long. The people needed a change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new candidate we have is a home boy and with the house-to-house campaign he is embarking upon, our victory will be massive,\u201d Mr. Cudjoe reiterated.<\/p>\n

He explained that, the NPP is still strong in the constituency because the party\u2019s Presidential Candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo won with a difference of about 3,437 votes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will make sure the margin increases so that Nana Addo becomes President of Ghana come 2017,\u201d Mr. Cudjoe stated.<\/p>\n

However, the NDC’s Western Regional Secretary, Joseph Nelson, is optimistic the governing party will win the seat for the first time since 1996.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Mahama has brought a lot of development projects to Sekondi and what the people want is development. We are just waiting for the D-day to retain President Mahama in power and we will also win the seat,\u201d the NDC chairman maintained.<\/p>\n

_<\/p>\n

By: Awudu Mahama\/ghelections.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), and the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), are battling to grab the Sekondi constituency in the Western Region in the December 7 general election. NPP has won the seat in five consecutive elections since 1996, with Papa Owusu-Ankomah, a former Majority Leader in Parliament and Minister of State occupying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":266375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2647,2648,58,11],"tags":[3,129,56,8578],"class_list":["post-272224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2647","category-election","category-politics","category-top-stories","tag-ghana-news","tag-ndc","tag-npp","tag-sekondi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=272224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=272224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=272224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=272224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}