Apart from the 1992 parliamentary elections that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) boycotted and the EGLE party, an offshoot of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), had a field day winning the Klottey Korle Constituency, all other parliamentary elections in the constituency have been a tug-of-war between the two main political parties in the country.
During the 1996 parliamentary election, the contest was among David Lamptey, a wealthy contractor and financier of the NDC, who won by polling 20,485; Tei Okunor, an Independent candidate who polled 17,205, and Gilbert K. Quartey of the NPP who garnered 17,090 votes. Swing constituency
In the 2000 election, however, things changed dramatically when the main opposition NPP took the constituency by storm in the general election.
Nii Adu Darko Mante of the NPP captured the seat with a convincing win of 29,249 votes, while the incumbent, Mr David Lamptey, polled 20,222.
Since then, the battle for the constituency has always been fierce as 2004 saw NDC’s David Lamptey changing the baton with another NDC powerhouse, Nii Armah Ashietey, to attempt to snatch the seat from the NPP.
In 2004, Nii Ashietey proved his worth by improving the fortunes of the party in the region by closing the gap between the NDC and NPP when he polled 30,351 votes as against Nii Adu Mante’s 32,263 votes, which managed to stop the constituency from swinging back to the NDC.
Increasing confidence
In 2008, while the NDC increased their confidence in Nii Armah Ashietey as their saviour in the constituency to wrest the seat from Nii Adu Mante, the NPP lost confidence in their MP, as he was replaced by Samuel Nii Adjei Tawiah.
Whether or not the NPP did the right thing by replacing Nii Adu Mante with Nii Adjei Tawiah is anybody’s guess. In that election, Nii Armah Ashietey was able to maintain his victory by polling 30,663, slightly increasing the previous mark by 400 votes.
In 2008, Nii Adjei Tawiah could not improve on the performance of his predecessor or maintain his declining fortunes as he polled 28,011, with about 4,000 votes being lost to the party. The constituency thus effectively swang back to the NDC through the efforts of Nii Ashietey in 2008
In 2012, Nii Ashietey repeated his winning ways, matching NPP’s Adu Mante’s two consecutive wins in 2000 and 2004.
Keen contest.
In 2012, Mr Ashietey polled 38,122, while Nii Tawiah significantly proved his worth by improving his worth to 34,847 but his best was not enough to unseat Nii Ashietey, who retained the seat for the NDC for two consecutive terms, as Nii Adu Mante did for NPP before he was booted out unceremoniously.
In 2016, as if the delegates of the two main political parties are learning new lessons, Nii Armah Ashietey has been booted out via the party’s primary and has been replaced by Dr Zenator Agyeman Rawlings, the daughter of the founder of the NDC, former President J J Rawlings.
Mr Ashietey, who felt the party had given him a raw deal, has sent the matter to court, thereby dangerously dividing the NDC in the constituency.
Constituency open for grab
The NPP, which stood a good chance to annex the seat, also dumped Nii Adjei Tawiah and initially went in for another youthful candidate, Valentino Nii Noi Nortey, who got elected on August 2, 2015 as the NPP candidate.
His candidature, however, did not last because Lawyer Phillip Addison, one of the defeated aspirants, went to court citing irregularities in the conduct of the August primary and it had to be shelved and a re-run on February 27, 2016.
Mr Addison won the re-run but Nii Nortey did not accept the February re-run and has declared to go independent to right the wrong done to him by the party leadership.
So the constituency, which is a swing one, is now up for grabs by any political party, as other strong candidates have emerged in the constituency. One such candidate is an accomplished woman, Ms Eva Lokko, who was the running mate of Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom of the Progressive People’s Party in the 2012 general election.
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