Politics of Friday, 8 July 2005

Source: Chronicle

NPP will lose Odododiodioo race -NPP capo

THE NEW Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Assin-North, Hon. Kennedy Agyapong, has predicted a massive trouncing for his party in the upcoming bye-election in the Odododiodio constituency in the Greater Accra Region following the death of Hon. Nii Ayi Kwei Mankata Ayikwei.

According to him, his prediction was necessitated by the inability of the government, spefically, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), to relocate the hawkers who had voted for the party before embarking on the decongestion exercise.

He said currently, a lot of supporters are disillusioned with the government, which has caused the party to be unpopular in the country.

Hon. Agyapong, who is noted for his frank and objective argument on issues, dropped the ?missile? when he was speaking on an Accra-based private radio station, Peace FM, on its newspaper review segment yesterday.

Taking a swipe at the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) Ghana for conducting a survey which revealed that when elections were to be conducted today, 52% of the electorate would vote for the NPP and 22% would vote for the NDC, the MP prevailed upon the CDD to stop deceiving Ghanaians as well as the NPP.

?Stop deceiving the public and the party. In the last elections, a lot of surveys were conducted; whilst others said that the NPP was winning 65%, what happened to that report? Let us check our mistakes and let us not be deceived. Let us vote today and see whether the NPP will win as predicted by the CDD.?

?People are disillusioned and have decided not to vote,? he added. ?Go to the Central Region today and see and there you would observe that if elections were to be held today, we would lose,? he emphasized.

According to Hon. Agyapong, the government has not done enough for the citizens to chalk success in any elections from now except the party sits up and do what the masses need.

He indicated that currently, some members of the party are not only disillusioned but peeved, ranging from the decongestion exercise among others. The NDC supporters, she said, are all intact and urged the NPP not to take solace in the CDD report, adding, ?we are becoming very unpopular. We must act now and if we fail, we will get zero if we go the polls.?

The NPP MP, who stated also that his party was practicing book politics, decried how people in the rural areas were thirsty for potable water.

However, he indicated that it was unfortunate that the NPP could not do much to reduce the supporters of the NDC.

On the upcoming bye-election, Mr. Agyapong, said, ?we are going to lose.

How can we win when the hawkers who voted for us have been sacked without relocating them? The seat is still for the NDC; if we go today, we would lose. Let us not deceive ourselves.?

It would be recalled that the CDD, Ghana, last Wednesday, stated in its snap survey that, the NPP would win 52% of votes, 22% for the NDC and 22% for the respondents if elections were to be held today.

In the report, the CDD said, the survey was conducted on 1,199 Ghanaians, which was dubbed the Ghana Afrobarometer Round III survey.

The survey took into consideration, the general perceptions and views of Ghanaians on certain essential aspects of their lives.

According to the CDD, the survey found out that Ghanaians were satisfied with the performance of the elected representatives in parliament but showed as well that the people?s patience with the economic reform was declining.