The Honourary Vice President of IMANI Africa, Bright Simons says the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is losing members of its core areas.
According to him, results from the just-ended by-elections as compared to previous elections show that the party has lost a significant number of voters, usually in its strongholds.
This, he blames on cracks in internal party systems which compels disgruntled party members to leave and contest as independent candidates.
Making reference to the Kumawu by-election, he said “when you look at what the NPP candidate got, the candidate got votes that were significantly lower from the usual trend of NPP votes. He lost about 7,000 of the core voters.”
Speaking on Newsfile he said, unlike the general notion which suggests that by-elections record lower turn-out, “it is not true that consistently by-elections record lower turnout, sometimes they do, other times they do not.”
Again, he stressed that although the overall turnout in the Kumawu by-election was bad, the NPP was losing some grassroots support whilst the NDC maintained its numbers.
Touching on the just-ended Assin North by-election, Mr Simons explained that although it is a swing constituency each party normally maintained a traditional number of votes.
However, the numbers have reduced for the NPP this time. According to him, since 1996, the party has always recorded 15,000 to 16,000 votes within the Assin North constituency.
“The core base [for NDC] is turning out and therefore they are sustained in their core base. The NPP on the order hand appears to be losing their core base in both elections.”
Mr Simons says this further proves that the strong core of the NPP is beginning to waver, and this may be linked “with massive disgruntlement in their grassroots and to some extent the economic factors that are prevailing in the country.”