The New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary candidate for the opposition stronghold Asawase Constituency, Alhaji Alidu Seidu has sworn that his archrival and incumbent Member of Parliament, Alhaji Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) would be unseated at the December 2020 polls by hook or crook.
This would be the second time that the two would be contesting for the seat which has been held by the NDC candidate and Minority Chief Whip for close to 16 years, after winning a bye election in 2005 to succeed the late Dr Gibril Adamu Mohammed, who had served only three months at the post.
It was quite a close contest in the 2016 election when the greenhorn Alidu Seidu managed to poll some 33,490 votes, representing 45.89% of valid votes cast; only some five thousand votes shy of third timer Mubarak Muntaka’s 39.095 votes representing 53.57%.
In the December 2020 parliamentary elections, Alidu Seidu comes in as the Chief Executive Officer of the Asokore Mampong Municipal Assembly (AAMA) and hopes to count on some “developmental projects” under his belt, which according to him, his contender was unable to achieve for the area in the 16 years that he has been in Parliament.
Speaking with the media after monitoring the ongoing voter registration exercise at some centres within the Asawase Constituency on day one, Tuesday June 30, Hon Alidu Seidu expressed satisfaction at the enthusiasm of prospective voters who had thronged the centres for their cards and said it portends victory for him in December.
“The people of Asawase will register to vote and vote well also; whoever that will win should take the seat, but he (Hon. Muntaka) has seen that he is losing; he will lose this election no matter what he does; even if he eats a full bag of salt, this time around he is going”, he bragged.
Asked by journalist why he felt so confident of winning the election, he added that, “I have worked hard; when I was going into the 2016 elections I did not do any campaign. The campaign that I did then did not include the fact that I had built a fire service station, I hadn’t built the health centres; all the big things I have done today, I didn’t have in my portfolio then but we worked hard to close the gap. So we are going to work extra hard and campaign to win the election based on the work that I have done”.
The Asawase Constituency is one of only three (3) seats held by the opposition NDC out of forty seven (47) in the Ashanti region; the constituency was created prior to the 2004 parliamentary elections and has since been held by the NDC.
In what it calls “Agenda 47/47”, the Ashanti Regional Wing of the ruling NPP has vowed to make the region a no-go-area for the opposition party by snatching all the seats in the upcoming elections in December; but Hon. Muntaka Mubarak in an interview with Kumasi-based Angel FM laughed off the idea and called it “an exercise in futility”.
