NDC Primaries: Binduri Constituency and what the outcome is likely to be

The Opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) will be going to the poll on May 13, 2023 to elect a flagbearer and parliamentary candidates.

Ahead of party elections in the Upper East region, I solicited the views and opinions from the people of Binduri regarding the NDC internal elections.

Binduri Constituency is one of the hottest constituencies to watch as far as the May 13 elections are concerned. Officially, two candidates, Lawyer Issifu Mahmoud, a private legal practitioner and Robert Baba Kuganab-Lem are competing for the Binduri Parliamentary seat.

Whoever wins will be facing Mr. Abdulai Abanga, the only New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament in the Upper East Region.

VIEWS
One of the reasons that contributed to the loss of Binduri’s seat to the NPP in the 2020 election was as a result of disunity and party internal wrangling in the camp of Dr. Robert Baba Kuganab-Lem and the camp of Mr. Simon Azimbe, who commands a huge following in the Binduri constituency.

Issues such as:

• 
  Disunity in the party after every constituency executives election and parliamentary primaries

• Poor campaign messages and unfulfillment of some promises

• Neglect of party foot soldiers

• Lack of social interventions on the side of our MPs and other government appointees

• Few families or individuals hijacking and benefiting from the party
• Party becoming unattractive to the youth
• Failure in developing the human resource of the party, where sighted as lapses that caused the Binduri NDC in the last election

According to the views we collated from those who matter especially the delegates, in Binduri, there is a history or historical antecedent that, you don’t come once and win an election, especially with regards to MPs. Robert Baba Kuganab-Lem per history lost and came back before he won in the Binduri seat. The people of Binduri believe in this adage that says, ‘The devil you know is better than the angel you don’t know’. Some of these delegates still believe Dr. Robert Baba Kuganab-Lem even didn’t do things right in his first term as an MP, with regard to development in the area like what the current NPP MP Abanga is doing on his first time in office.

Dr. Robert Baba Kuganab-Lem was the former Deputy Upper East Regional Minister before being elected as an MP by the people of Binduri from 2016 to 2020. But his own people still think they did not feel his works as expected.

Some also believe that Robert Baba Kuganab-Lem is a book-long type who finds it difficult to assist members of the constituents when they knocked at his door for help. According to them, if Robert Baba Kuganab-Lem wants to move forward in politics, he must come down to the level of constituents and throw his book long somewhere.

On the part of Lawyer Issifu Mahmoud, information also gathered during our visit in Binduri has it that, Lawyer Issifu only resurfaced after the 2020 election and started meeting with opinion leaders and party members to announce his interest in the party. He resigned as a police officer.

We also gathered that at a time, the issue of disqualifying Lawyer Issifu Mahmoud came up due to his inactiveness in the party but the party concluded that they needed unity. So, disqualifying him will rather bring more disunity because whether the party likes it or not, the Lawyer has his own party supporters. We have gathered that Lawyer Issifu is penetrating seriously with his good message of hope to the Binduri people.

PREDICTION
After analyzing the views gathered from delegates from Binduri, we have the conviction that the May 13, primaries between Robert Baba Kuganab-Lem and Lawyer Issifu Mahmoud is going to be a tough one.

However, Robert Baba Kuganab-Lem will be able to sail through but not with many votes ahead of his contender Lawyer Issifu Mahmoud.

For the Flagbearership, John Dramani Mahama will get over 90.5 percent ahead of his other contenders Dr. Kwabena Duffour, a former Minister of Finance and Mr. Kojo Bonsu, a former Mayor of Kumasi.