Ghana’s ruling political party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has explained the party’s tragic defeat in the Assin-North by-elections. The NPP attributed the party’s defeat in the June 27 by-election to inadequate time to market the NPP candidate; Charles Opoku, to constituents.
Speaking on behalf of the party in an exclusive interview with Asaaseradio, Justin Frimpong Kodua, the General Secretary of the NPP explained that, after the Kumawu by-elections, the party was occupied with organizing the primaries to elect a representative for the Assin-North parliamentary seat, and as such could not get enough time to market the person as against NDC's candidate who had run in Election 2020.
“As a party, right after the Kumawu by-election, we didn’t have enough time, we had to go quickly for primaries to elect our candidate, and yet Charles Opoku was elected within the shortest possible time. So, it is true we couldn’t market him well. The time was short, as against a candidate who had run in Election 2020 [James Gyakye Quayson],” he said.
He urged all NPP loyalists across the country of the party’s commitment to work harder to ensure victory at Assin-North in the 2024 Parliamentary elections.
In May 2023, the Apex Court ordered Parliament to remove James Gyakye Quayson’s name from its records as the Member of Parliament for Assin North. Parliament then declared the seat vacant which paved the way for the June 27 by-election.
The Supreme Court ruled that Quayson was not qualified to contest the 2020 parliamentary elections in the Assin North Constituency at the time he filed his nomination forms on October 9, 2020.
The Court found that Quayson had not shown evidence of renouncing his Canadian citizenship, and that the Electoral Commission had granted him permission to contest the election without this evidence.
The Court further ruled that Quayson’s election as Member of Parliament for Assin North Constituency was unconstitutional.
The 7-member Court in a unanimous ruling stated that “the qualification of holding only Ghanaian citizenship must be present at the time of nomination, and not any date thereafter.”
James Gyakye Quayson re-election as MP for Assin-North
James Gyakye Quayson retained Assin North for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) by polling 17,245 votes (57.56% of the total cast) to beat his main rival, Opoku, who had 12,630 votes (42.15% of the total).
EAN/WA
New Patriotic Party