My Defeat was Caused by Mahama’s Appointees – Bismark Tawiah

The immediate past Eastern Regional Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Bismark Tawiah Boateng, is blaming all some appointees that served in the John Mahama-led administration for the lost of his chairmanship position in last Saturday’s regional executive elections.

The appointees made up of Ministers, deputy ministers, Metropolitan and District Chief Executives, Ambassadors as well as some others including some National executives of the NDC, according to the ousted regional chairman, teamed up to ensure his exit.

Mr. Boateng noted, was led by the former Eastern Regional Minister, Mavis Ama Frimpong, former Ghana’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland, Victor Smith and a Vice National Chairman of the NDC, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo.

“I will not blame anybody for my defeat but it is instructive to note that all former appointees gag up against Tawiah Boateng. All of them including Ofosu Ampofo, Victor Smith and others embarked on operation remove Tawiah Boateng and bring JOWAK.

They met all former MMDCEs and even called one Founding Member of the party, Alhaji Abu, who urged them to vote massively for JOWAK. They did all these machinations and even forced one contestant, Basil Ahiable to step down. They sat him down and tried to convince him to step down for JOWAK. They promised to pay him (Basil Ahiable) GHS130,000 (¢1.3 billion) but he refused it. All these contributed to the delay in the delay in conducting the regional elections”, he noted.

Tawiah Boateng made these allegations when interacting with Accra-based Okay FM, Monday, September 3, 2018.

His comments were in response to some of the things that accounted for his defeat in last Saturday’s Eastern Regional Executives elections of the NDC.

In the keenly contested elections, Mr. Boateng polled 281 votes while Basil Ahiable was able to garner 249 votes of the total valid votes cast.

John Owusu Amankrah, popularly known as JOWAK polled 373 votes to takeover the regional chairmanship position which he has occupied before.

Boateng commenting said he will not grief over his defeat since the elections were meant to bring the party members together to elect their leaders who can lead them to recapture power from the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2020 general elections.

He urged all the elected executives to work hard to ensure that their dreams of recapturing power from the NPP are realized.