The Chief Executive of the State Transport Company of Ghana and former Member of Parliament for Okaikwei South Constituency, Nana Akomea, has stated that rejected ballots fare better than the combined votes of independent candidates in Ghana’s elections since 2000.
According to Mr. Akomea, this casts serious doubts on the prospects of independent candidates in Ghana’s politics.
For that reason, Nana Akomea expressed his strong disagreement with the decision of Mr. Alan Kyerematen to resign from the NPP and contest the 2024 General Elections as an independent candidate, tagging the decision as one with a fruitless end.
“The other reason why I disagree strongly with him is that the course of action that he has taken, that he is going to stand as the independent candidate will be fruitless, will be fruitless! It will not be useful to him at all. When you look at the records, personalities who break away from the parties don’t fare well at all.
“In the run-up to the 2000 elections, the independent votes got less than 1 %. In any case, even the rejected ballots were more than the votes of these independent and breakaways combined. The rejected ballots were more than they got. So if you look at the prospects for an independent candidate, and you look at the records from the year 200, no independent candidate has gotten 1% so that conduct is not going to be useful to him.”
Nana Akomea
Backing his argument, Nana Akomea cited the likes of Obed Asamoah, Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, Jacob Osei, Kwesi Amofa Yeboah, and Kwesi Ndoum, among others and espoused how their breakaways were inconsequential to the politcal fortunes of their parties. He thus stressed that breakaways and independent candidates, compared to rejected ballots, have underperformed in Ghana’s elections since 2000.
He further gave instances when political parties won general elections amidst major breakaways for which reason, he remained confident of the chances of the NPP in the 2024 General Elections.
“There are other instances where breakaways happened and the incumbent parties did not lose elections. For example, the NPP suffered breakaways in 2000 and the NDC suffered a breakaway with the Nana Konadu thing and they still won ( in both separate instances).”
Nana Akomea
According to him, the drop in Alan’s votes in the NPP elections over the years signified a major reduction in his popularity and was thus confident in the insignificant impact of Alan’s resignation on the party in 2024 General Elections.
Nana Akomea Hopes Mr. Kyerematen Will Return To NPP
Admitting to the political weight of Alan Kyerematen in NPP however, he expressed his hopes that the former trade minister will reconsider his decision and turn back to the party.
“And I hope that as we go along towards 2024, he will have a change of heart and reverse course. He is a valuable member of the NPP and it is not a good feeling when you lose a valuable member like Alan Kyerematen.”
Nana Akomea
Notwithstanding his hopes, Nana Akomea strongly disagreed with the decision of Mr. Kyerematen to break away because he (Nana Akomea) found no serious justification and merits in his reasons.
“So I hope he comes back, but I disagree with him on this course of action he has taken. I can’t find any justification at all. When you look at what he himself has put out as the reason why he has resigned, I am trying to find some serious merits in those reasons but I can’t find any.”
Nana Akomea
According to Akomea, among other allegations from Mr. Kyerematen’s resignation press conference, even if the allegations that incidences at the polling station where Alan’s agent was hurt warranted that all the votes there were declared null and void, the results of the August 26th would have been no different, hence debunked the idea that that election was skewed.
For him, the grounds for Alan’s resignation lacked merits.
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