The controversial former National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for the Lower Manya Krobo constituency, Michael Teye Nyaunu has advised his party to render an unqualified apology to residents in the Volta Region, following the party’s abysmal loss in the just ended general elections.
President Mahama became the first incumbent to lose a re-election bid after a first term, as the opposition New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, won 53.85 percent of the total valid votes cast, against his 44.40 percent.
Even in some regions such as Volta Region, which is considered as a strong hold of the NDC, the party performed poorly as compared to previous years.
Speaking on Eyewitness News, Mr. Nyaunu said the NDC took the residents in the region for granted hence failed to attract the numbers required to push the party to victory.
“Why should we be taking Volta Region for granted when they have given us their support all these years. ..They deserve an apology at the national level. NDC must render an unqualified apology to Voltarians.”
Residents in the Volta Region had earlier threatened to vote against the governing NDC in the general elections if measures are not taken to fix their deplorable roads.
They argued that several attempts to get government to fix their roads had proved futile.
Factors that accounted for NDC’s defeat according to Nyaunu
The former MP outlined other factors that contributed to the President’s defeat.
• The NDC’s failure to open up the process for others to contest the incumbent President Mahama during the party’s primaries contributed to the party’s defeat in the elections.
“The seed of the defeat was sown during our presidential and parliamentary primaries. They refused to allow people to contest the incumbent President. Contesting the incumbent President would have brought the finest out of him and it would have also prepared others to take up the mantle when he exits but we made things extremely difficult so we lost that opportunity,” he explained.
• The party’s decision to deliberately disenfranchise party members at the primary level.
• Incumbent Members of Parliament had disconnected themselves from the constituents and only showed up during the elections.
“Money was in the hands of some popular people and these popular people happen to be the incumbent MPs and some of the Minsters. They were holding money and they were able to buy votes and influence people to vote for them but the reality on the ground was that they were not there for their constituents, they had distanced themselves … and that culminated to the defeat of the President as well,” he said.
• The lack of coordination between the NDC’s campaign team did not help the party formulate a uniform strategy to win the election.
* Members of the campaign team misused resources allocated for an effective campaign.
Suggesting the way forward, Mr. Nyaunu emphasized the need for the party to reorganize the party from the branch level in order to win the elections in 2020.
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