Barbara Oteng Gyasi's loss as MP has nothing to do with her performance as a minister – Socrates Safo

The shock of the just-ended 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections has still not been forgotten by citizens. Many parliamentarians lost their seats to the surprise of Ghanaians, one of them being the Minister of Tourism and Creative Arts, Barbara Oteng Gyasi.

Barbara Oteng Gyasi lost the Prestea Huni-Valley seat to the National Democratic Congress’s Robert Wisdom Cudjoe.

Madam Oteng Gyasi polled 34,067 votes while the NDC’s candidate garnered 56,464 votes.

Many reasons have been assigned to the loss by Ghanaians on social media, prominent among them being the fact that she didn’t deliver as a Minister of Tourism and Creative Arts.

But speaking on the reasons for her loss on Peace FM's Entertainment Review Show, a member of the NPP’s creative arts team, Socrates Safo, said he doesn’t believe that the minister’s performance at the creative arts ministry has anything to do with her loss.

“I will say it has nothing to do with the industry, absolutely nothing; when she was voted for in 2016, she wasn’t voted for with the intention that she was going to be a minister in the arts, so her constituents were not judging her performance in the arts...” he said

He said he rather believes that local politics and some policies of the government that did not favour the people caused her defeat.

Elaborating further, Socrates cited the fight against galamsey by the government as a potential reason for Barbara Oteng Gyasi’s loss, saying that the policy caused a lot of the locals to have a disaffection for the government thereby voting against their MP.

“The people were also looking at the party she represented and their policies, for example, galamsey. When you are a minister in such an area where galamsey thrives and your government makes policies such as the fight against galamsey, that directly affects them, whether you are doing well in your given ministry or not they don’t care...” Socrates continued.

He also said her work in the constituency itself was not something that encouraged the people to return her to parliament, as the opposition candidate had a solid base and structure that resonated with the people.

“It is local politics that affected her; her people were judging her based in her performance in the constituency and her effect on the people…”, he said.

"We did all we could, our people were on the ground but she still lost and I can assure you that it has nothing to do with the arts…” Socrates Safo submitted.