The Mayor of Kumasi, Samuel Pyne, has revealed that the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) is fighting propaganda by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) that could cause voter apathy in the Ashanti Region during the 2024 general elections.
Mr. Pyne was responding to a yet-to-be-released report by Global InfoAnalytics, which suggests a surge in voter apathy in the Ashanti and Greater Accra Regions ahead of the December 2024 polls.
According to the Mayor, some propaganda messages from the NDC are the main cause of voter apathy in Kumasi, as projected by the data from Global InfoAnalytics.
Moreover, he said the party had started educating Ashanti Region residents on the party’s contributions to their benefit.
“This is a general thing. If you talk about apathy in elections, especially when governments have been there for two terms, some of these things are bound to happen. And I know when you come to the Ashanti Region, there was a concerted effort by the NDC, especially to create the impression that we have done nothing for the region. They look at it and ‘say, yes, Ashanti Region is the vote belt of the NPP’.
“They keep on deceiving people by not even talking about the Volta Region and the northern parts of the country, where they garner most of their votes and where they’ve done nothing for them. This propaganda has been in the system for the past three years, and therefore, definitely, there is a possibility of it having an effect on people,” he noted in an interview monitored by The Ghana Report on Asaase Radio.
He added: “We, as a political party, have also started our work. We are also talking to people, letting them know, especially with the regional minister having pressers every month.
“We take sector by sector and talk about the good things that we have done for people. We also concentrate very much now on our communications. I know things are going to change, but it is a normal thing that happens almost all the time, especially when governments are in for two terms,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Chief of Staff, Akosua Frema Osei-Opare, during the inauguration of the Ashanti Region NPP campaign team, expressed optimism that the Ashanti Region, being the stronghold of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), will give the party the needed numbers to break the 8-year electoral cycle in this year’s elections on December 7, 2024.