Charles Opoku of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) lost the Assin North by-election due to three initiatives taken by the ruling party, according to the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).
NDC National Communication Officer, Sammy Gyamfi, explained that ahead of the by-election on June 27, the NPP undertook three actions namely; Deception, Inducement and Violence with the acronym “DIV”.
According to him, with regards to deception, the NPP unknowingly sold NDC’s James Gyakye Quayson while warning electorates of the possibility of him being imprisoned over the allegations of perjury and forgery.
“In their campaign, the ‘D’ was, don’t vote for Quayson, he lied to you. They (NPP) were spending about 30 minutes explaining why Gyakye Quayson will go to jail,” he said.
Another reason the NPP lost was due to the amount of money dashed to electorates, Mr Gyamfi said.
“They thought that the people of Assin will sell their conscience and mandate for a pittance for their 200 and 300 cedis most of which were misappropriated by the people they entrusted them with. When we were busy campaigning in the midnights, I would always see them by the roadside eating “chinchinga” (beef sewers) and dancing and drinking beer with their women and all that. Their only hope was that we are going to deceive this people”.
He also accused the NPP of orchestrating violent activities that ensued during the by-election. Per reports, the vehicles of Mr Gyamfi and other NDC executives were attacked.
“You saw how they deployed their hooligans, bandits and their thugs on the election day and how they sort to intimidate us and sort to attack some of us, shot into our cars, vandalized our cars but we and the good people of Assin were resolute throughout the process”
Mr Gyakye Quayson on Tuesday, June 27, beat his closest contender, Charles Opoku of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Assin North by-election by obtaining 17,245 votes out of the total valid votes of 29,962, representing 57.56 per cent.
Mr Charles Opoku, on the other hand, garnered 12,630 of the votes cast, representing 42.17 per cent while Bernice Enyonam Sefenu of the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG) secured 87 votes.