Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, a candidate for the position of General Secretary in the National Democratic Congress (NDC), claimed that the current New Patriotic Party (NPP) won the 2020 General Election because they spent a fortune on their campaign.
In order to gain the seats they now have in Parliament, he claimed that the NPP had outspent the NDC by a ratio of almost 1:1,000 during the parliamentary elections.
Elvis claimed that the NPP had turned to force and vigilantism in places where money was insufficient to increase voter turnout; hence, those seats are still being litigated in court.
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express on why he is the perfect man to succeed the current NDC General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, Afriyie Ankrah noted that while the NDC lost the 2020 General Elections, the statistics bode well for the party.
“I believe we won 142 seats, five of them are in court now, and it was through violence. You saw what happened in Techiman, Tarkwa Nsuaem, Sefwi Wiawso and all those other places because of the violence that was deployed.
“And then again the NPP outspent us by a ratio of maybe about one to a thousand, because we know the money we made available to our parliamentary candidates for example. It’s not up to 100,000. It’s not even up to 50,000, but you heard an NPP Vice Chairperson saying that she was given 1 million, just her alone.
“So they outspent us absolutely. They had so much cash, and that is why we’re in this crisis. They spent money, they opened the vaults. You’d be surprised to know that in some of the Northern, Savannah regions on the eve of elections bullion vans actually came to pack and money was being disbursed,” he said.
According to him, the election statistics show that even despite an NPP win, the NDC has gained more grounds among the Ghanaian electorates and is poised to take power in the upcoming 2024 General Elections.
“So with all that spending, if we’re to go by the official declaration of the EC, we have 137-137. Don’t forget that when we were in government, we had 106 seats, we lost by 44.3% and we recovered. And when I say this I say this very carefully so that nobody will think that we’re happy that we lost.
“We did not go in to lose, okay, but when you’re doing analysis, the statistics they speak. The statistics show that from a deficit of 106 seats, we now have 137. And if you look at the numbers, we had a deficit of 1 million votes which we clawed back so President Mahama’s votes went up by 6.2 million.
“So there were contentions over the Presidential votes which we went to court and all that. So I believe we’ve built a certain momentum,” he said.