Regional News of Tuesday, 1 December 2020

Source: GNA

President rallies NPP’s traditional stronghold to ensure high voter turn-out

Ghana goes to the polls on December 7 Ghana goes to the polls on December 7

The Ghanaian electorate should turn out in their numbers to cast their ballots in the December 7 elections, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has appealed.

It was within the citizenry’s right, he said, that qualified voters turn up at the respective polling stations to exercise their franchise.

This, according to him, would offer them the chance to endorse the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) for a second term, saying his administration would not disappoint in delivering on its campaign promises if given the nod.

The Electoral Commission (EC) estimates that about 17 million Ghanaian registered voters would cast their ballots in the upcoming polls – which would mark the eighth successful General Election to be conducted under the Fourth Republican Constitution.

“Please, for continuity and posterity sake, every qualified voter must take this exercise seriously,” President Akufo-Addo told the electorate as he addressed separate durbars of the chiefs and people of Offinso, Nkwantakese, and Atonsu, all in the Ashanti Region.

Of the 47 constituencies in the region up for grabs, the NPP is eyeing all.

The party currently has 44 of those seats, while the main opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has three.

The President is in the Region, a traditional stronghold of the NPP, to solicit votes ahead of the Presidential and Parliamentary polls, as he accounts for his stewardship since assuming office in 2017.

NPP garnered total ballots of 5,755,758, representing 53.7 per cent of the votes cast in the Presidential race, while the NDC had 4,771,188 of the ballots, representing 44.5 per cent.

Out of the total valid voter population of 3,019,178 registered in the Region for the 2020 elections, the ruling NPP is targeting about 90 per cent of the ballots to be cast in the Presidential elections.

The party’s campaign is focusing on its delivery in the educational, agricultural, trade, and industrialization sectors as well as infrastructural development and job creation.

Citing the ‘Free Senior High School (SHS)’ Programme, the President indicated that the initiative was one of the most decisive human resource development agenda ever to be executed since Ghana’s independence in 1957.

The objective, according to him, was to invest massively in the country’s human capital, thereby producing a knowledgeable society for accelerated socio-economic growth.

“The work we have done as government speaks for itself,” President Nana Akufo-Addo remarked, stressing that other programmes such as the ‘One District, One Factory’, ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’, ‘Planting for Export and Rural Development’, had brought enormous benefits to the people.