National communications officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi, has revealed that the by-election held in Assin North which saw the party’s candidate, Gyakye Quayson win was a referendum on the performance of government.

According to him, the NPP is uncomfortable to make any comments when conversations on the Assin North by-election comes up. He indicated that this is because the Assin North by-election and the results has shown that the NPP/Bawumia government has been a “monumental failure”.

Owing to this, he explained that the good people of this country are yearning for the opportunity to change them come the next general election.

“… What happened at Assin North was a referendum on the performance of this government. It was more or less, a midterm elections on the performance of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia/NPP government.”
Sammy Gyamfi

Furthermore, Mr Gyamfi stated that the reason why the NPP is uncomfortable with the subject of Assin North is that the by-election has exposed the “vincibility of the NPP”. He indicated that the NPP has been parading around as a group of invincible people and unbeatable, which has proven otherwise.

“But the good people of Assin North have demonstrated that the NPP is very beatable, that indeed, they are just a group of overhyped braggarts. Assin North is not a constituency like Kumawu or Ho Central. Ho Central is a known and traditional stronghold of the NDC. Kumawu is also a stronghold of the NPP. So, if you win a by-election in Kumawu, a seat you’ve won since we started holding competitive elections in Kumawu, it is nothing extraordinary, it is just like the NDC winning the Ho Central seat.”
Sammy Gyamfi

Mr Gyamfi noted that the approval rating of a government is measured when the electorates in a swing seat cast a vote of confidence or a vote of no confidence in that government, as was seen in Assin North. He explained that every student of elections in the country should know that Assin North is a swing seat, as such, the outcome could have gone in anyone’s favor.

“The constituency was created in 2012 and since then, the NPP and the NDC have been rotating the seat…”
Sammy Gyamfi

Ghanaians have lost confidence in the NPP government

Also, the communications officer for the NDC highlighted that the people of Assin North have signalled to the government for and on behalf of the people of Ghana that they are tired of “hardships, misrule, misgovernance, they are tired of the state of hopelessness” that they find themselves in as a country.

This, he stated, is as a result of the “crass mismanagement and insensitivity” of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia/NPP government.

“So, it is good for them to do introspection but it is too late for the NPP to do any introspection that can lead to remedial actions being taken by them to change the fate that is awaiting them in the 2024 election… We won this election because of four factors. We won because we had a better candidate than the NPP, we had a stronger and a more competent, united team, we had a more convincing, a more persuasive message and we had a superior strategy… Their message were three, what I call DIV – Deception, Inducement and Violence…”
Sammy Gyamfi

Emphasizing that the win for Gyakye Quayson was a reflection of the hope of the people of Assin North, Sammy Gyamfi emphasized that but for NPP votes, Gyakye Quayson would not have been MP in the first place. He revealed that Mr Quayson became an MP because over 2,000 NPP who voted for President Akufo-Addo voted for him.

“In this by-election, many NPP people voted for him. That is why President Akufo-Addo got 16,000 votes in 2020 but they were struggling to get 12,000 votes in this by-election. Because even NPP people in Assin North read through the shenanigans and the deception of the NPP, their intimidating tactics, their agenda to induce them and they taught them a hard lesson that look, election is not about money, it is about demonstrating to the electorates that you are capable of representing them…”
Sammy Gyamfi

Moreover, he indicated that the NDC among other things, demonstrated to the people of Assin North that Gyakye Quayson was not a criminal, that he was only a victim of persecution and that he was not going to jail.

“We demonstrated to them that a vote for the NPP candidate was going to be an endorsement of their misgovernance and their misrule which has collapsed the Ghanaian economy and plunged all of us, including the good people of Assin North into untold hardships…”
Sammy Gyamfi