Former Member of Parliament for Akwatia in the Eastern Region, Mercy Adu Gyamfi, popularly called Ama Sey,has picked nomination forms to contest for the New Patriotic Party Internal Primaries.
The form was picked by some delegates in the Constituency who want the former MP to become the Party’s candidate for 2024 Election in the Akwatia Constituency.
In recent primary, Mercy Adu Gyamfi,who was incumbent seeking a second term had 223 votes, losing with four votes to Ernest Kumi who garnered 227 votes.
Other contenders for the Saturday, June 20 primary in the constituency included: Lawyer Bernard Owiredu and Robert Ampratwum who polled 77 and 13 votes respectively.
Attempt to retain the seat by the NPP in 2020 general election failed as Ernest Kumi lost the seat to the NDC’s candidate in the polls.
A 51-year-old Businessman, Mr. Henry Boakye Yiadom alias Okoyo of the NDC defeated his sole contender Enerst Kumi of the NPP with 19,899 votes as against 18,742 garnered by the latter to win back the seat for the NDC.
Speaking at a durbar of Chiefs and people of Akwatia as part of his tour of the Eastern Region on Thursday, October 7, 2021, President Akufo-Addo said that he was very hurt when he found out that the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) had lost the Akwatia seat in the 2020 election.
According to him, winning that seat back is non-negotiable for the party.
“The NPP lost a lot of parliamentary seats we should have won in the 2020 elections. One of such seats which hurt me the most was the Akwatia seat. I honestly don’t know what happened but I was sad that Akwatia went to the NDC, but I can assure you that in 2024, we will do everything within our means to regain that seat.”
In 2016, Member of Parliament (MP) for Akwatia, Baba Jamal lost the seat to the opposition New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) candidate for the area, Mercy Ama Sey.
He polled 15,905 votes, while Ama Sey whom he described as hairdresser garnered 21,433 of the total valid votes cast, according to provisional results from the Akwatia constituency.
2023/2024 Parliamentary Primaries
For the constituencies where the party has no sitting Members of Parliament (MPs) also known as orphan constituencies, NPP opened from Tuesday, July 11, 2023 and closed on Thursday, August 10, 2023 instead of the June 16, 2023 to July 14, 2023 announced earlier.
The orphan constituencies would be held on a case-by-case basis to elect parliamentary candidates to contest on the party’s ticket in the 2024 general election in those constituencies from September 2023 to Saturday, December 2, 2023 instead of the earlier announced date of August 1 to December 2, 2023.
Source: mybrytfmonline/ Mensah Atakora
