Mussa.K. Dankwah, Executive Director of Global Info Analytics, has listed the main issues that led to the defeat of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Assin North by-election.
Before the election, the pollster revealed that, according to their most recent survey, the candidate for the New Patriotic Party, Charles Opoku, was ahead of the other candidates by a narrow margin.
Mussa Dankwah claimed that vote-buying and the extreme opulence displayed by some NPP members were some of the factors that led to the party’s defeat in an interview on Eyewitness News on Citi FM.
This is the cause of NPP defeat in the Assin North Election
“It was a combination of many different factors, including the perception that they are persecuting James Gyakye Quayson, the fact that they left development projects in Kumawu [uncompleted] and hurriedly came to Assin North, and another factor was the sheer opulence and sprinkling of money in the constituency.” The pollster mentioned this to the fill-in host of Eyewitness News on Wednesday, Nii Larte Lartey. “It made some people very angry,” the pollster said.
He went on to emphasise the reasons Charles Opoku lost the election and noted that the bulk of his demographic, particularly in NPP strongholds, did not vote. He concluded that this was one of the primary causes of Charles Opoku’s defeat.
“James Gyakye won the people who were uncertain, the majority of them, and Charles Opoku lost ground to Quayson on the basis that his demography didn’t turn out to vote, especially in NPP strongholds such as Kushea and Breku, where they were hoping to win, but they didn’t.” James Gyakye won the people who were indecisive, the majority of them. According to him, these are the reasons that James Gyakye Quayson exceeded expectations.
After the by-election that took place on Tuesday, June 27, 2023, Mr. Quayson received 17,245 votes, which represents 57.56% of the total, while Charles Opoku of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) received 12,630 votes, which represents 42.15% of the total.
Sefenu Bernice Enyonam, the candidate for the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG), received a meagre 87 votes, which is equivalent to 0.29% of the total vote.
Due to the fact that Gyakye Quayson was expelled from Parliament for possessing dual citizenship before submitting his papers to compete in the 2020 elections in the Assin North seat, a by-election had to be held in order to fill the vacancy left by Quayson.