2020 Polls: Afenyo-Markin tops Central Region …John Boadu says he should be rewarded

Member of Parliament for Effutu, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has won the admiration and commendation of his party leadership after he emerged as the best performed parliamentary candidate on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Central Region.

He is on record as the only NPP candidate in the Central Region to have won more popular votes than the party’s presidential candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo in the December 7, 2020 elections.

Though Afenyo-Markin was able to increase Akufo-Addo’s votes in the Effutu Constituency from the 2016 figure, he still had more votes than the president at the polls.

He completely knocked off the National Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate by winning the seat with 63.96 percent of valid votes cast.

Afenyo-Markin had 33,545 votes while the NDC candidate had 18,802 votes. The gap between the two is 14,743, an impressive performance in a constituency that was hitherto not a safe seat for the NPP. And a significant win in a region that most of the NPP candidates were voted against.

John Boadu, the NPP General Secretary, speaking on Asempa FM Tuesday afternoon noted: “Afeneyo-Markin has done soo well. He has converted an otherwise marginal seat into a safe seat for the New Patriotic Party (NPP). Now Effutu is a safe seat for the NPP because of Afenyo-Markin has maintained this record for three consecutive elections.”

John Boadu continued: “That seat used to be very unsafe and kept oscillating. Afenyo-Markin, in terms of popular votes, Effutu tops the whole of the Central Region by a gap of close 15,000.  For Afenyo-Markin to do this in a constituency that used to be safe for the NDC, he needs to be congratulated. For him to have done this, it is not easy to manage and get that margin and keep increasing his votes for a third consecutive time”

Afenyo-Markin and the NPP won all the Electoral Areas within Effutu and he won at 140 polling stations. The NDC candidate won at just 3 polling stations out of a total of 143 polling stations.

Before Afenyo-Markin emerged on the scene, the margin of win for either the NPP or the NDC in Effutu had hovered just around 2000.

Afenyo-Markin, in the 2012 elections, won with a margin of over 6000 popular votes; which was a record win for any candidate in Effutu. In 2016, Afenyo-Markin again increased the margin of win to over 10,000 and this year he has yet again increased the margin to almost 15,000.

His performance on the Floor of Parliament has been outstanding and has made him a household name in political circles.

Afenyo-Markin is a third term MP and one of the few who have an excellent rapport with Members from both sides of the divide and a smart lawyer who has won several landmark cases of national importance; including when he dragged the Electoral Commission to the Supreme Court and got it to suspend the Assembly Elections across the country.

In January 2017, his name was on several lips as an ideal MP to be in leadership position on the Majority side, but that did not happen.

Not even Ministerial or Deputy Ministerial slot was given him under the Nana Akufo-Addo presidency.