Pride and disrespect of MPs and appointees cost us parliamentary seats – Ahafo Regional NPP Chair

Ahafo Regional Chairperson of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwabena Owusu Sekyere has blamed the losses the party suffered at the 2020 parliamentary elections on pride and disrespect of Members of Parliament (MPs).

According to him, some MPs grew airs and felt untouchable after they won the 2016 elections. And he believes this attitudinal change cost them the December 7, 2020, elections.

He added that the poor performance of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) are also factors that affected the party’s parliamentary fortunes.

Speaking in an interview on the Epa Hoa Daben political talk show with Don Kwabena Prah, Kwabena Owusu Sekyere said, “President Akufo-Addo has no problem but his appointees and MPs are the cause of the party’s problems. Their pride and disrespect caused most of the MPs to lose their seats”.

He shared that when travelling through their constituencies, these MPs would roll up the windows of their cars and ignore the same people who voted them to power. “They’ll ignore people standing by the roadside hailing them when these same persons voted them to power and that is the sad reality. This is what affected us at the parliamentary level”.

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) both had some of their MPs not returning to the 8th parliament because some lost at the parliamentary elections, others lost at their primaries with others voluntarily retiring.

A total of 111 members of the seventh parliament did not return to the legislative house for the eighth parliament in January 2021.

Out of this 111, 78 of them were from the NPP and 33 were NDC MPs.

Now the 8th parliament has an equal balance of 137 MPs from both the NPP and NDC with one independent candidate.