“THE NATIONAL Democratic Congress (NDC) will win nine new seats and add to our existing four seats to make it 13 seats in the Ashanti Region during the December 7 elections.”
These were the exact words of the then confident-looking President John Mahama, as he embarked on massive campaign tour of the Ashanti Region, where he visited most of the constituencies.
President Mahama, who was the candidate of the NDC for the polls, without mincing words, stressed that the NDC’s four seats at Asawase, New Edubiase, Sekyere Afram Plains and Ahafo Ano North, were safe.
Addressing party faithful when his campaign train hit New Edubiase, then a safe seat of the NDC, he stated that the Ashanti Region was no longer the stronghold of the New Patriotic Party (NPP.)
President Mahama noted that the NDC would snatch nine new seats from the NPP in the Ashanti Region to buttress his claim that the region was no longer a stronghold of the NPP.
Interestingly, the NDC was able to win just one of the nine targeted new seats (Ejura/Sekyedumase,) but the party also lost two of its four seats including Ahafo Ano North and New Edubiase.
President Mahama during the tour also stated that he would win the presidential race with a landslide but he ended up losing miserably to Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the NPP.
Confusion
Reports emerging indicate that confusion had hit the NDC in the Ashanti Region after the defeat, as key party members had started pointing accusing fingers at each other, regarding who caused the shocking defeat.
Some of the aggrieved party members, according to reports, have said the renting of non-NDC members to fill all the spaces during the party’s public programmes, did not help them.
Other NDC top guns also believed that the party did not have a clear message to woo the voters as compared with the NPP, and this resulted in their first round defeat by the NPP.
A party insider said on anonymity that President Mahama also should partly be blamed for the embarrassing defeat.
He said the president during his visit in the region talked as if he polls was not difficult.
According to him, President Mahama stated that the elections was a done deal for the NDC, and this positive saying from the president, perhaps, made the party supporters to relax a bit during the campaign.
For instance, the NDC insider said, whilst Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was passionately appealing to the electorates to vote for him, President Mahama was doing Jamaican Sprinter, Usain Bolt victory sign as if all was well.
FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi