NDC Loses Grip At Asawase
FROM ALL indications, the National Democratic congress (NDC) is gradually losing grip of the Asawase seat in Kumasi, as the mass defection which has hit the ruling party continues unabated.
The latest group to join the defection train to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is supporters of the ruling party in the Quarmariyah electoral area in the Asawase constituency.
Earlier, scores of the party's supporters in the Sawaba and Aboabo Nima, all Muslim dominated neighborhoods in the Asawase constituency and stronghold of the NDC, had all crossed carpet to the NPP.
Over 350 ardent supporters of the ruling party in the four polling stations in the electoral area including polling station executives have announced their defection to the NPP.
The four polling stations in the aforementioned electoral area have been a waterloo for the country's largest opposition for years, a contributing factor for the party's inability to annex the Asawase seat, though the constituency is located in Kumasi, a stronghold of the NPP.
Having served the interest of the NDC since 1992, the group said at a mini-rally on Saturday that they had decided to join hands with the NPP because the President Mills-led government had disappointed them.
The spokesperson for the group, Hakem Saleywa, noted that the President Mills-led administration had not only disappointed members of the NDC but Ghanaians as a whole.
According to him, the plight of Ghanaians had worsened since the Mills administration assumed the reins of government, contrary to its campaign promise that it would create a better Ghana for all and sundry.
Saleywa, a former NDC polling station chairman at Quarmariyah polling station B, denied rumours that their defection was a strategy to extort money from the NPP.
He emphasized that if their motivation was money, they would not have denounced their relationship with the NDC, a party in government, to join an opposition party.
'If we wanted money from the NPP, we would have announced our defection to the party when they were in government and not now that they are in opposition and do not have money to share,' the spokesperson clarified.
Stressing that their defection was real, Saleywa disclosed that the cost of organizing the well-attended mini rally was footed by the members themselves.
He also repudiated claims that they were not known members of the NDC, indicating that the outcome of the 2012 elections in the constituency would determine whether they were NDC members or not.
On behalf of his members, Saleywa appealed to officials of NPP in the region to provide them with adequate security, disclosing that some elements of the ruling party were harassing them for taking the decision.
To dignify their new 'marriage' with the NPP, the members did not only dress in assorted NPP 'T' shirts but also decorated the whole vicinity with the colours of the NPP.
The Asawase NPP constituency chairman, I.K Brenya, welcomed the defectors and urged them to work diligently to ensure that the NPP, for the first time, conquered the Asawase constituency in the forthcoming polls.
He assured the defectors of the party's support in diverse ways to ensure that they did not regret their decision to join forces with the NPP, noting that the NPP was surely destined to come back to office in the next elections.
The Ashanti regional chairman of NPP, Frederick Fredua Antoh, on his part emphasized that the NPP was a bonafide property of northerners, particularly people in the Zongos and therefore urged the new members to work hard for the party.
He stressed that it was time northerners and people in the Zongos realized that their great grandfathers including S.D Dombo, founded the NPP, therefore they should reclaim their leadership role in the party.
From Morgan Owusu, Kumasi