KT Hammond
THE NEW Patriotic Party (NPP) has won all but a handful of the parliamentary seats in the Ashanti Region, including seats in ‘orphan’ constituencies.
The party recaptured the Ahafo-Ano North seat which was annexed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in 2012, and took over the New Edubiase Constituency seat with 18,477 votes, representing 55.98 percent of the valid votes cast.
Richard Akuoko Adiyiah won the seat with 18,895 votes for the NPP, whiles the incumbent Member of Parliament, Akwasi Adusei of the NDC, trailed with 14,479 votes.
The party however, lost the Ejura-Sekyedumase seat to the NDC’s Bawa Braimah who garnered 23,277 votes.
The NDC also retained the Asawase and Sekyere Afram Plains seats that are occupied by Muntaka Mubarak Mohammed and Alex Adomako Mensah respectively.
Many of the seats in the region had been targeted by the NDC during the electioneering campaign, with President John Dramani Mahama declaring that the party would sweep 13 seats to increase its strength in parliament.
But as it stands now, it appears the declaration was whimsical without any basis, in view of the clean sweep by the NPP.
So far, the NPP has taken 44 of the 47 seats, and also made inroads in other ‘orphan’ constituencies across the country, per official Electoral Commission (EC) results.
Abraham Dwuma Odoom, former Deputy Minister of Health in the erstwhile Kufuor NPP administration, won the Twifo/Atti-Morkwaa seat in the Central Region.
The 63-year-old accountant snatched the seat from the NDC’s Ato Amoah, who is the incumbent MP for the area, after a vigorous campaign hinged on job creation, road infrastructure and political inclusiveness.
He won 21,231 votes as against 14,887 votes secured by Ato Amoah of the NDC, whilst the majority of the presidential votes – 19,274 – also went to Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
Meanwhile, the NPP MP, K T Hammond, has retained the Adansi Asokwa seat after securing 16,468 of the valid votes against 12,389 bagged by his closet contender, Evans Amankwa of the NDC.
The NDC had declared it as one of the targeted seats the party was keen to wrestle from the NPP, but that did not happen as wished.
From Ernest Kofi Adu, Kumasi