Simon Osei-Mensah, Ashanti Regional Minister
The Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah, has congratulated the National Democratic Congress (NDC) following its keen competition with governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the just-ended presidential and parliamentary elections.
According to him, the NDC took him by surprise with the "magical" performance put out in the election.
Appearing on Peace FM's Kokrokoo on Friday and contributing to a discussion about the elections, the Ashanti Minister said although he doubted the NPP of losing this election, he is overwhelmed by the battle given them by NDC.
The Minister could not fathom why the NDC will give NPP such a hot race despite the introduction of all its flagship policies as well as "pro-poor policies" targeted at communities.
"I highly congratulate the NDC for their magical performance. Look at the many interventions by Nana Addo including pro-poor policies. If you have studied the electoral landscape of Ghana, you'll see that NPP wins in the big cities and towns, always we lose in the poorer communities, but I don't understand what happened," said Simon Osei Mensah.
Asked if the NPP's low performance could not be attributed to the President's fight against illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey or perhaps the banking sector crisis, Mr. Simon Osei Mensah said, he believes "poor communication" in conveying and explaining the government's policies to the people, rather affected the party.
"Kwame [referring to the host], I agree with you to a limited extend. I said limited extend because how many people lost their money? ...And most of them have been paid by the government... The onus here is that as NPP, we don't market our products well. We couldn't explain the importance of the government's policies to the deeprooted and that caused us," he told Kwame Sefa Kayi.
He added, "Look at galamsey, I agree people were affected. I can say 80% of Ghanaians were in support of Presenter's fight since it started, though I can't back this claim with any scientific data. But we succumbed to the NDC's propaganda because of our poor communication."
He, however, called on NPP to make a proper introspection into what led to party's downfall as according to him, "it's the only way we can prepare adequately for the 2024 elections and win convincingly."