Akwatia by-election: NDC, NPP battle for supremacy…Who goes home with the bragging rights?

All is set for the Akwatia by-election to take off tomorrow smoothly in the Eastern Region according to Ghana’s electoral management body, the Electoral Commission (EC)

With the recent obscene incidents that marred the Ablekuma North Constituency’s 19 Polling Stations rerun fresh in the minds of Ghanaians, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. Christian Tetteh Yohono has deployed over 5,000 uniform and plain cloth police personnel to Akwatia and its immediate environs’ to maintain law and order during, before and after the election.

The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), has put forward one Mr. Solomon Kwame Asumadu, popularly known as Owuo, a 40-year-old licensed small-scale gold miner, while the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) is also presenting Mr. Bernard Bediako Baidoo, a lawyer,  for tomorrow’s showdown.

Akwatia constituency’s by-election has come as a result of the passing of Mr. Ernest Yaw Kumi, some months ago. Even though there are three political parties contesting in tomorrow’s polls, political watchers have described the exercise as two-horse race between the NDC and NPP candidates.

Although, the outcome of tomorrow’s polls will hardly make any meaningful impact on the NDC’s two-thirds majority in the legislature, even without the four independent MPs who have already chosen do business with the ruling party if it wins, a win for NPP will certainly make no impact.

However, the Akwatia constituency presents an interesting political trajectory, one can cites even the success rates of the NPP and NDC in the eight parliamentary contests post-1992 as evidence of the constituency’s unique profile.

Of the eight parliamentary elections held so far in the constituency, discounting the 1992 transition election, both parties (NDC & NPP) have won the constituency four times each, the NPP in 2000, 2004, 2016 and 2024, and the NDC in 1996, 2008, 2012 and 2020. And so all the machinations by the parties to win the by-election are for bragging rights and image enhancement.

When the NDC wins, it does not add anything to its super majority in Parliament, just as it cannot change the NPP’s minority status.

Both candidates, Mr. Asumadu, and Mr. Bediako Baidoo, are contesting for the first time, have traversed communities across the constituency in a bid to convince voters with their campaign messages.

If all things be equal, over 52,328 electorates in the Akwatia constituency are expected to turn to cast their ballots at 119 polling stations.

Pre-election surveys by Sanity Africa and Global InfoAnalytics suggest a narrow win for the NDC’s Mr Baidoo.

Nonetheless, the NPP is determined to retain the seat, formerly held by the late Ernest Yaw Kumi, who passed away on July 7, 2025, while serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for the area.

Latest by tomorrow mid-night, Ghanaians will surely know who carries the bragging rights home.

By: Franklin ASARE-DONKOH