The December 7 presidential and parliamentary elections ended some five (5) days ago and the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) has declared Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the incumbent New Patriotic Party (NPP) the president-elect after he polled some 51 percent of the total valid votes cast.
However, the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and it’s presidential candidate, former President John Dramani Mahama, has expressely and unequivocally rejected the verdict of the Electoral Commissioner referring to the result as flawed and fictionalized.
As a result, the National Democratic Congress has organized a series of Press Briefings to make their concerns and objections known to the general public. They, however, since election day declared that they have a parliamentary majority in the just-ended parliamentary elections.
This issue became a great deal of debate between the incumbent New Patriotic Party and the main opposition National Democratic Congress. As of yesterday, the Electoral Commission however released a statement indicating that the NPP won 137 and NDC won 136 seats with one independent candidate and one constituency seat still outstanding.
Peter Mac Manu, the National Campaign Manager of the New Patriotic Party, has However disclosed that they [the New Patriotic Party] have lost the elections because they have lost way too much seats in the parliamentary elections throughout the country.
In the last four years, the New Patriotic Party was the majority in Parliament with one hundred and sixty-nine (169) parliamentarians whiles the National Democratic Congress was the minority with about one hundred and six seats in Parliament. This occurred after the NDC lost massively in the 2016 general elections
He also said that they initially set targets for the December 7 presidential and parliamentary elections—to secure a one-time victory in all the 16 administrative regions of the country and secondly, to win more parliamentary seats in every region as well.
According to Peter Mac Manu, the New Patriotic Party has lost a total of 33 parliamentary seats, 21 of these Parliamentarians are either key ministers of state or deputy ministers. This is a huge lost to the NPP and should not be considered as victory at all.
Speaking on Joy News on Monday, December 10, he also said the there is therefore the need for the NPP to seat down as a party and review their way of conducting parliamentary primaries because they can’t just afford to repeat such a defeat in subsequent elections.
He also said that their actual plan was to secure not less than a one million (1,000,000) valid votes difference between their main opponent, former President John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress.
