The newly-elected National Democratic Congress (NDC) parliamentary candidate for the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency, John Dumelo says his hidden interactions with party delegates to sell his message to them resulted in his massive victory in the recent parliamentary primaries.
Dumelo said he deliberately did not publicize his community engagements and meetings with delegates to impress upon them to make him the party’s choice for the constituency into the 2020 parliamentary elections.
Speaking on The Point of View on Citi TV, he said the decision left many being uncertain about his chances in the poll as others underrated him.
“Since the by-elections which I didn’t contest in, I have been doing a lot of work on the ground and so that amounted to the 88% [victory]…I think so [I was underrated]. And the good thing that I did was that, most of the political stuff that I did, I did not put it on social media because that is not what is important,” he said.
“What is important is the one-on-one dialogue with the delegates which I was doing, and so that is why people were thinking whether I was contesting or not. When you go to the delegates and you speak their language, they will understand you and they will vote for you,” he noted.
At the end of the polls on Saturday, John Dumelo got 758 votes while his only contender, Madam Adoboe managed 99 votes.
A total of 859 delegates voted in the elections with two rejected ballots.
This will be John Dumelo’s first and major political victory in the country as he has all this while been known as an actor and recently, a farmer.
Dumelo had earlier come forward to contest the NDC primaries for the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency when that seat became vacant following the death of the incumbent New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP, Emmanuel Kyeremanteng Agyarko in November 2018.
He, however, withdrew before the main contest.
A pharmacist, Delali Brempong won the primaries at the party level but lost to the widow of the late MP, Lydia Alhassan, who contested on the ticket of the NPP in the controversial polls.