Mr. Allan Kyeremanten, 48, the Minister of Trade, Industries and President’s Special Initiative (PSI) is streets ahead of New Patriotic Party (NPP) aspiring candidates duelling in the congested field of 19 for the opportunity for a face off with the NDC’s Professor John Evans Atta Mills, and others from the smaller parties yet to elect a presidential candidate.
The very first Minister-aspirant to burst unto the field, Mr. Keremanten, who dropped an opportunity to contest the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem (KEEA) Parliamentary seat, has been able to sustain the blistering pace he set with his maiden visit to Elmina in the first quarter of 2006.
Allan at the time touched down at the area with his brother Steve,his unofficial campaign manager, introduced himself to the Chief of Elmina, Nana Conduah, and his abusuapanyin in tow. The dapper Allan has been able to exploit his fractional maternal linkage (mother is half Fante and half Asante) to his Fante roots, an essential political asset these days of ethnic political permutations.
Chronicle’s intelligence monitoring of most of the NPP aspirants by this paper’s correspondents in the paper’s, fully-established editorial offices in nine out of the ten regions, has confirmed to head office that in the face of all the claims being cabvassed, the Allan’s chariots of war is in front line standing so far, but with nearly one year to go, anything can happen to upset everything, something his insurance executive brother in Accra, is dreading.
KEEA POLITICS Data supplied from the Central Region bureau show that, some supporters of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) have erected a protective wall to ward off the onslaught of Allan in the KEEA Constituency, which is the sole seat in the country where the ‘inclusive ‘Government’ candidate Paa Kwesi Nduom is currently ‘king’.
Candidate Kyeremanten’s recent high profile activity, during the celebration of this year’s Bakatue festival, when he was dispatched to attend by President Kufuor to represent him, was seen as a confirmation of the widespread speculation that Allan was the President’ choice.
To his credit, Allan, has been able to secure the support of the NPP Constituency Chairman, Mr. Appiah Korang, a tough principled man, the constituency secretary, Asmah and his elder brother, who is the DCE, Mr. George Frank Asmah, a former correspondent of The Chronicle, who worked for the paper while studying for his degree at the University of Cape Coast.
What is unclear is the position or allegiance of the Regional Minister, Nana Ato Arthur, a native of Abrase, in Abirem within the minority KEEA Constituency, since the constituency chairman and his Regional Minister have a very tested relationship.
The biggest problem confronting the area is a chieftaincy affair, which has pitched the long-time friend of President Kufuor, Nana Conduah, the chief of Elmina and godfather of Dr. Kwesi Nduom against one of the implacable foes of the chief, Nana Asmah, a noted kingmaker in Elmina, who incidentally happens to be the father of the Asmah brothers.
The CPP knows that any exponential growth in the support base of the NPP in the area could potentially spell trouble for Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom, the Minister for Public Sector Reforms, but would have an egregious political downside because it is guaranteed to tip the seat straight into the waiting hungry arms of the main political rival, the NDC, which kept the seat from 1992, 1996, 2000 through Dr. Ato Quarshie, the former Minister of Roads.
KUFUOR STOPPED ATO ARTHUR’s RUN It took the intervention of President Kufuor to stop Nana Ato Arthur, then the District Chief Executive, from running on the ticket of the NPP for the seat in 2001, before Dr. Nduom could halt the advance of the NDC. But with President Kufuor now virtually in his last year in office, no one can stop the burning ambition of Arthur to mount a parliamentary assault on Nduom’s seat.
Allan’s forays into KEEA and the open declaration of Nana Ato Arthur, now the Regional Minister, for the parliamentary seat, and key KEEA executives\delegates, may be providing Allan with a vital bridgehead for his political annexation of the Central Rregion, arguably the most prized asset in the election.
KALAMARI Chronicle intelligence has also established a super secret political ring erected by Allan with the code name, Kalamari, a political network which envelopes the nation, and is financially nourished and empowered by Allan. Virtually every NPP regional chairman, from Volta through Upper East to Central, is said to belong to the Kalamari, which boasts of some leading Ministers in the Allan train as well. Allan also boasts of a close alliance with the Honourable Joe Ghartey, the dynamic and youthful Attorney General and Minister for Justice, who is also the MP for Essikado Ketan, a helpful combination that has strategically reduced the potential impact of Papa Owusu Ankomah, who has declared to fellow MPs that he is running for President.
Owusu Ankomah, 48, crucially needed the Joe Ghartey support because he worked from the chambers of Ghartey and Ghartey in Accra when he had to leave his practice in Takoradi to take up appointment as Minister.
Another substantial Minister associated with the Allan ticket is the workaholic and resilient Hon. Stephen Asamoah Boateng, Minister of Local Government, and Enviroment. Steve and his DCE for his Mfantseman West constituency, Mr. Quainoo-Arthur, are both from Kromantse and are strong Allan loyalists, an indication of the quality of support that Allan enjoys considering the powerful pull that these relevant loyalists can command.
Allan’s former Deputy, Honourable Osei Ameyaw, the MP for Asuogyaman, is also a very powerful ally to the Kyeremanten Kalamari network.
Chronicle intelligence has however established that Allan has begun to entertain doubts on the loyalty of Osei Ameyaw; because of the entry of the powerful former two-term General Secretary Mr. Dan Botwe into the presidential contest. Dan Botwe’s maternal link is Asuogyaman, and the highly regarded Dan was a major catalyst for Osei Ameyaw’s victorious assault on the otherwise impregnable NDC strongold from the party’s domination since 1992.
Billonaire Osei Ameyaw, has now improved his standing in the constituency, being one of a handful of MPs who do not even collect their pay checks from Parliament, but turn it over for projects that benefit the constituency. Independently, Chronicle could not gather whether he is still loyal to Allan even though he is a regular in the Dan Botwe side. He could not be reached for confirmation when Chronicle called and most of the respondents to our calls refused to be quoted for obvious reasons- they do not want to be tagged.
Curiously, even though, NPP political pundits maintain that a Kufuor endorsement is a kiss of death, the Allan ticket appears to be on the ascent, buoyed by a finely tuned message of youthfulness and enterprise and his careful omission of record of catastrophic failures as a Minister and ambassador. On Tuesday however, a Peace FM programme however had someone touch on the sensitive, potentially destructive record of his tenure as Minister in charge of Presidential Special Initiatives (PSI). It was like pin prick in a bloated balloon- a suggestion that $40 million might have gone to waste on the cassava/ Starch project under his watch though.
‘Strangely, nobody seems to know that it was Allan who brought failed projects like the American supermarket chain, and the CNCTI scandal, which has been foisted on to the balance sheet of Hon. Yaw Osafo Maafo’, observed a delegate from one of the opposing camps in the Ashanti Region, where our Ashanti regional bureau confirmed that the 39 constituency voter-rich region was divided over Allan’s bid.
According to our intelligence, constituency executives and polling station chairmen have been expressing disappointment with Allan’s stance of distancing himself from his genuine Asante roots. His father was one of the President’s mentors, along with the late Victor Owusu, and remains a doyen of the Kumasi Asante folklore, having been a Minister in the Second Republic of Dr. K.A Busia’s government.
There is no clear front-runner in the region, which is famous for its independent free-wheeling spirit, which has enabled the principal political adversary, the NDC to secure three seats.
Allan’s technique of canvassing for delegates from polling station to polling station, instead of meeting only the regional executives has also caught on widely, and pushed equally hard-working aspirants like Dr. Addo Kufuor to adopt the same expensive but effective strategy. The Northern Region is an open field with Vice President Aliu, Nana Akuffo Addo, Dr. Addo Kufuor and Allan, fighting for slices of the open fields of an increasingly resurgent NDC maintaining a grip on the turf.
‘Lately, Arthur Kennedy has been making inroads at KEEA’, observed one confirmed delegate, loyal to Allan, of the equally youthful 47-year-old former student leader/medical practitioner (He has resigned his lucrative job in the US). Dr. Kennedy is from Asebu in the Central Region, with the Minister for Fisheries, Hon. Gladys Asmah, grew up in Kumasi, but according to the Allan loyalist, ‘Allan has sponsored and secured all the delegates from that constituency’.
With tomorrow’s constitutional review conference, it is expected that all the giants of the party will assemble at Koforidua and provide a veritable pool of delegates for mass fishing.
It is expected that probably the party’s leadership would borrow a leaf from the NDC’s ‘family forum’ format, when the ground rules for non-adversarial combat would be laid out to head off a potentially poisonous campaign at which candidates may be slashing at one another to get to the front line of the queue. Issues, and only issues and track record of performance would eventually be the deciding factor.
