Kumawu bye-election: Litmus Test for NPP’s Breaking the 8

Three days prior to the Kumawu byelection, on Sunday, the President begged Kumawu Asante residents to support the NPP candidate. Due to the passing of current MP Philip Basoah, a midterm election is required. Bernard Antwi Bosiako, the chairman of the Ashanti Regional Council, also made a bended-knee appeal to Kumawu natives to support the NPP candidate.

Why will the entire government apparatus, commanded by the President of the Republic, his Vice President, Chief of Staff, and others, besiege the small township and its surroundings in one small bye-election when it has historically been a stronghold of the NPP? The Kumawu election will serve as a litmus test for the ruling party's campaign slogan, "Breaking the 8," according to the President himself. Simply put, it's a suitable environment to determine the degree of popularity.







Indeed, like many areas in the Ashanti Region, Kumawu is one of the most neglected places in Asante and the government machinery is worried people who otherwise, would have voted for them un-bloc, will now decide otherwise. Attempts to coax Kumawunians with instant roads construction have failed rather miserably. Roads and Transport Minister, Amoako Atta had earlier told the Kumawu people that, there were no funds to complete many of the abandoned roads in Kumawu and its environs.




And presto, a sitting MP from the NPP-end dies; and a certain whirlwind has brought money from the unknown to complete most of the abandoned projects. Such has been the story of bye-elections in Ghana and the NPP cannot be left out of the norm. But the citizenry have become aware of the trickery, that, left alone to the road politics, the NPP will have lost miserably. Hence, the last minute rescue mission from the powers that be, in administration.










That mission is largely geared toward NPP’s readiness to Beat the so called 8. It’s also an admittance that the government has failed their Kumawu stronghold indigenes. And so the outcome could also serve as a gauge with other NPP strongholds, particularly, those in the Ashanti Region. With their sentimental attachments to the NPP, it will be most difficult for some die-hard Kumawians to vote for their fiercest rival— the NDC; but still they would want to teach the NPP some lessons: They may not turn out at all to vote.




And you know what that means? The Independent candidate, a known NPP member will likely “steal” the seat which had been the cherished legacy of the NPP and their legitimate candidates since 1996. The NPP candidate, Ernest Yaw Anim is hoping to replicate what his predecessors have done in Kumawu by parrying off any possible threat from all competing parties.










He’s new and if the options were to follow the status quo, then the story of the known order would be maintained. But there is a certain Kwaku Duah, a known NPPian turned independent candidate, who is out there to script a new order at Kumawu. This is a man who the Ashanti Region NPP, maneuvered and got him out of the party’s Kumawu parliamentary primary under some bizarre circumstance.




Kwaku Dua went independent, garnered a whopping 11,000 and over votes, as against the winner, Philip Basoa of blessed memory in the 2020 general elections. It was indeed, a cliff-hangar of a contest. As usual, the NDC came a distant third.