NDC Will Break NPP Dominance In Eastern Region -JOWAK

The Eastern Regional Chairman of the opposition National Democratic Congress, (NDC),John Owusu Amankrah, is confident his party will annex more parliamentary seats in the region to break the age-old dominance of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the next general elections.

According to Chairman Owusu Amankrah, affectionately called JOWAK, the eight seats currently occupied by the NDC out of the 33 seats in the region, will be overturned and maximize the presidential votes for the party in the 2024 elections.

JOWAK, who is seeking reelection as Regional Chairman, believes the 2024 elections present the NDC a great opportunity to work harder to break the decades of political dominance of the ruling NPP in the region.

He believes the 2024 election is a serious one that requires an experienced, strategic and unifying leader, who is capable of consolidatingthe gains made in the 2020 election and significantly improve it.

He explained that the NPP has performed poorly in terms of management of the economy, physical infrastructural development and all other sectors of the economy, hence they must be punished at the polls.

He accused the Akufo-Addo administration of concentrating its little developmental projects at the central part of the region, thereby leaving other parts to wallow in abject poverty with basic infrastructural deficit.

As an experienced politician, JOWAKis credited with the appellation “record holder” for his footprints in the politics of NDC in the Eastern Region.

He served two terms as regional chairman under the erstwhile late Jerry John Rawlings administration, which he annexed 19 parliamentary seats for the NDC.

However, the party lost majority of these parliamentary seats in subsequent elections, when he left as Regional Chairman.

In the 2016 Presidential election, then candidate Akufo-Addo of the NPP had 678,482 votes, representing 62.38%, while the NDC’s John Dramani Mahama pulled 397,549 votes, representing (36.55%).

The NDC lost the Upper Manya Krobo seat, which it had occupied since 1992, bringing its parliamentary seats in the region to six.

But when JOWAK returned as the Chairman in 2018, he managed to increase the parliamentary seats by two, bringing the total to eight after the 2020 election.

Under his leadership, candidate Akufo-Addo pulled 741,870 votes, representing 60.46% in the 2020 presidential election in the region, while John Dramani Mahama of the NDC secured 472,042 votes, representing 38.47%.

The party won the Ayensuano constituency seat from the NPP, and recaptured the Upper Manya Krobo’s, making it eight seats, but painfully lost Upper West Akyem constituency.The party also recorded a significant improvement in votes in the parliamentary elections.

JOWAK says he is targeting some more parliamentary seats in the region in 2024,wherehe had already embarked on serious ground work to snatch the seats from the NPP.

He is confident,under his leadership, the NDC will win back Upper West Akyem and some other constituencies in the region to increase the parliamentary seats.

In the race battling JOWAK for the Regional Chairmanship position areMark Oliver Kevor,a former Regional Secretary of the party,Mr.William Atamudzi, the incumbent Vice Chairman, former regional chairman, Bismark Tawiah Boateng and Basil Ahiable.

Source; Anchorghana