Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah
The NPP government says it is satisfied with the margin of victory it recorded in Monday’s presidential election.
The government believes it did well in the presidential election in view of the threats from various groups to vote against it prior to the polls, due to certain tough decisions taken in national interest.
The government is happy it did not succumb to the threats of the various groups and institutions.
Responding to the issue of whether the government was taken aback by the margins, the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, yesterday underscored the need for proper analysis of the previous and just-ended elections.
“We are looking at the 2016 election in which about 10 million people voted, out of which there was a margin of some 900,000 between President Akufo-Addo and his challenger, former President Mahama.
“The 2020 election had about 13 million people voting; that is a very different basket out of which a little over 500,000 people retaining confidence in Akufo-Addo,” he said at a press conference.
“Going into this election, there were very strong organised group of persons who had been affected by some of the tough decisions that this administration has had to take, announcing boldly that they are going to organise coalitions to vote against this government,” he explained.
He cited an instance where persons involved in illegal small-scale mining were quite clear that if the President even attempted to fight it, they were going to make sure that they would vote against him.
“Check particularly the parliamentary results in the galamsey areas, you’ll see that true to the threat, you can extrapolate and see how that affected us in the galamsey areas, for example,” he said.
He added: “Take the financial sector resolution and particularly those in asset management companies who boldly announced and called on their members to vote against the administration, to compel the election into a second round so that the government will be forced to pay them a hundred per cent. Government had a choice: do you break the bank just to win an election or do you maintain fiscal responsibility?”
He said the government considers “this to be a good result at the end of the presidential election because we did not have to break the bank or succumb to these threats just because we wanted to win an election.”
Expectations
The Information Minister told journalists that President Akufo-Addo and his appointees are already back to work, a day after the declaration of results for the presidential election, to wrap up government business for the year.
“The President expects his appointees to work with dispatch to ensure that the remainder of the government program for 2020 is fully achieved,” he said.
He noted that Ghana, generally, is also being applauded by the global community and observer missions who monitored the conduct of the polls.
On the role of the media, Mr Oppong Nkrumah said they were instrumental in assisting with voter education, civic rights, Election Day developments as well reporting on and collation of results.
“While applauding your contributions, the government urges the media to uphold the excellence with which it has conducted its coverage of the 2020 elections. The government of Ghana is hopeful that with our collective efforts, our country’s democracy will continue to be strengthened in a peaceful and sound environment,” the Minister added.
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