Suhum Assembly finally gets PM after Opare-Ansah broke election stalemate

The Suhum Municipal Assembly in the Eastern Region has elected Akrono Benjamin Orrison as Presiding Member after a year of election deadlock.

The election of the Presiding Member has been held seven times without securing the necessary percentage of win as required by law. This affected smooth running of the assembly.

On Monday, February 1, 2021 the assembly reorganized another election but after first round of voting, none of the two new contenders Kumi Wallace and Akrono Benjamin Orrison secured the required votes to emerge the winner.

This was after failed intervention by the Member of Parliament for Suhum, Oboafo Kwadwo Asante and other senior members of the NPP in Suhum to convince Assembly members aligned to the opposition National Democratic Congress who had taken entrenched position not to vote for any candidate put forth by governing New Patriotic Party as Presiding Member.

The immediate former Member of Parliament for Suhum, Frederick Opare-Ansah, upon hearing outcome of the election rushed to the Assembly to hold talks with the NDC aligned Assembly members and managed to convince them to change their entrenched position for the sake of the development of Suhum.

Shortly after the intervention of Mr Opare-Ansah a second round of voting was held and supervised by the Electoral Commission where Akrono Benjamin Orrison secured 34 votes as against Kumi Wallace’s 8 votes to win the Presiding membership position.

“We backtracked our position because of how Hon. Opare-Ansah came to speak to us. In fact he spoke to us very well and calmed down tempers because we were not happy with the disrespectful posture of the MCE,” Amankwah Emmanuel -Assembly Member for Oforikrom told the media .

Another Assembly Member said “we voted for him because of the maturity and respect Hon. Opare-Ansah exhibited towards us. The reason why we have been voting against the NPP candidate for the past eight times is the fact that our MCE Margaret Darko, as a matter of fact doesn’t regard some of us(NDC caucus) in the Assembly. But for the intervention of Hon. Opare-Ansah we would have voted against the PM contender to demonstrate to the MCE that the power lies with us, therefore, we deserve respect. My expectation from the PM is to unify all and not follow the bad leadership style of the MCE”.

The Municipal Chief Executive for Suhum, Margaret Darko Darkwa, however, said the stalemate which surrounded the election of the Presiding Member was unnecessary partisan politics and waste of time by the NDC Assembly members. She was however hopeful that the assembly can now be run smoothly with the Presiding Member at post.

Frederick Opare-Ansah, later told the media that his intervention was for the progress of the Suhum Municipality and for the successful implementation of life-changing policy interventions by the NPP government for the Assembly.

” the stalemate started when I was a member of the Assembly by dint of being an MP, that was somewhere January 2020 after the inauguration of the Assembly by Hon. Cecilia Dapaah. We didn’t get the requisite number of votes to elect a presiding member. After that, they have gone for subsequent elections but failed to elect a presiding member. Upon my return from Kumasi yesterday, I got wind of the fact that a new member who is a government appointee has been nominated to contest” .

He continued ” I received a call from Akrono Orrison, the PM aspirant that after first round of voting he didn’t not get the requisite number, i took it upon myself to head there, listened to the concerns of the assembly members and assured them that their complaints will be addressed in due time and that, we should first and foremost, put the interest of Suhuman above all grievances”.