Former president John Dramani Mahama has urged voters in Assin North to strongly support James Gyakye Quayson in the upcoming by-election, despite his recent removal from Parliament through a Supreme Court ruling.
Mahama emphasized that the June 27 by-election would serve as a means to demonstrate that the ruling New Patriotic Party, the courts, and any other parties involved had unjustly invalidated the legitimate election of Quayson as the representative for the constituency.
“They (the government) used dirty politics and intimidation, as well as hatred in a bid to remove him and attempt to remove him,” Mahama told supporters at Gangan during the final rally of the NDC on June 25.
“We are going to show the elephant (party), the courts and other conspirators that in 2020 we knew who we wanted and voted for James Gyakye Quayson as MP,” he said to applause.
Gyakye Quayson, Mahama continued: “lived in Canada comfortably and routinely comes home to support his people before deciding to return to his country and serve his people.”
He insisted that Quayson had validly renounced his Canadian citizenship yet the government continued to use underhand tactics with the sole aim of removing him to boost their numbers through the courts.
“He has been through threats, they have infiltrated the courts with politics, today, in Ghana’s history we have a time MPs’ election are contested in court, but such people remain in parliament till case is decided but only him, he has faced injunctions whiles his case is being heard. It has never happened before but just because of politics,” Mahama lamented.
The by-election has attracted a lot of political activity in the past few weeks. Campaigns ended on June 25 ahead of the vote.
President Akufo-Addo led the New Patriotic Party’s final rally in the constituency campaigning for the candidacy of Charles Opoku who according to a poll is leading marginally.