Did the NPP lose parliamentary seats in 2020 elections because they fought Galamsey?

The Akufo-Addo administration is under heavy fire for its failure to tackle the illegal mining crisis, destroying forests and water bodies and leading to a sharp rise in water treatment costs and public health concerns.

In defense, government officials and members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) argue that their efforts to combat illegal mining (galamsey) have come at a political price, with the party losing several parliamentary seats in mining communities in the 2020 elections.

The NPP lost its parliamentary majority (169-106) in the 2020 elections, returning to the House in 2021 with a slim majority of 138-137, only because the independent candidate for the Fomena Constituency, who won the seat, decided to rejoin the party in Parliament. While political analysts have attributed the loss to various factors, including internal strife, the party has leaned on its fight against galamsey to justify its losses. This is even though President Akufo-Addo, who once declared he had put his presidency on the line to combat illegal mining, won “skirt and blouse” contests in some mining constituencies.

The first NPP prominent figure to make this claim was then Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah. Three days after the 2020 general elections, he stated that the NPP had lost seats in galamsey-prone areas because of the government’s crackdown on the practice.

“I will give you a few examples,” he said. “For persons involved in illegal or irresponsible small-scale mining, those in the galamsey areas, they were quite clear that if the president attempted to fight galamsey, they were going to ensure that they vote against him. Check particularly the parliamentary results in the galamsey areas, and you will see that true to the threats that were advertised, that if we fight galamsey, we will fight you, you can extrapolate and see how that affected us in the galamsey areas.”

In October 2022, during a tour of the Eastern Region, President Akufo-Addo also made this point, stating, “I suffered for it. Many of the mining communities in this country where we have won before, we lost them directly as a result of this galamsey fight. So it wasn’t an idle statement.”

He would reiterate this position recently during a recent campaign tour of the North East Region.

The NPP’s 2024 running mate, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh, alias NAPO, recently echoed this view, stating, “Truthfully, it cost the NPP over 20 seats in the 2020 election. This is why Nana Addo won the 2020 election by 500,000 votes, but Parliament became a tie. I have been a Director of Election, and I am telling you the effects of Nana Addo’s relentless pursuit of illegal mining cost NPP votes and parliamentary seats.” (Here)

Other NPP officials, including former General Secretary John Boadu, Elvis Morris Donkoh (Deputy Chairman of the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament), and the MP for Asante Akim South, have used this reasoning to explain the government’s reluctance to declare a state of emergency, as demanded by organized labour ( here, here and here).

 Fact-Check Ghana has investigated this claim by examining election results in 86 constituencies where there is illegal mining.

Mining activities, including illegal mining, occur in 13 of the country’s 16 regions, except the Northern, Greater Accra, and Volta regions.

The Ashanti Region has the highest number of mining constituencies (24), followed by the Eastern Region (15); Western Region (11); Western North (9); Central Region (6); Upper West (6); Upper East (5); Ahafo Region (3); Savannah Region (2); Bono Region (1); Bono East (2); North East (1) and Oti Region (1).

Although the NPP lost 14 seats, several local dynamics influenced the elections that cannot be attributed to galamsey.

Out of the 85 seats, NPP went into the 2016 elections with 64 seats, while NDC held 21 seats. In the 2020 elections, NPP experienced a net loss of 14 seats, while NDC lost one seat (Yagaba Kubori). This shift brought the totals to 50 seats for NPP and 34 seats for NDC, with one independent seat in Fomena.

While NPP lost 14 seats, these outcomes were influenced by several local dynamics, which cannot be attributed solely to issues like galamsey (illegal mining).

In Akwatia Constituency, an NPP stronghold, President Akufo-Addo won both the 2016 and 2020 elections but the party’s parliamentary candidate Ernest Kumi lost to Henry Yiadom Boakye of the NDC. Analysts blame the defeat on internal wrangling.

Media reports indicate that the party went into the elections in the constituency with a divided front. According to the reports, it took a last-minute intervention by President Akufo-Addo to stop the then-incumbent MP, Mercy Adu Gyamfi, who was popularly known as Ama Sey, from contesting as an independent candidate.

In the Lawra Constituency, a historically loyal NDC stronghold, the NPP only managed to win once in 2008 and snatched again in 2016. Media reports indicate that the NPP faced internal divisions leading up to the 2020 elections. Again, media reports show that Anthony Karbo, the NPP MP for Lawra, did not lose his seat due to the fight against illegal mining.

Instead, reports indicated that internal party conflicts played a significant role in Karbo’s defeat. Specifically, tensions between Mr Karbo and his constituency chairman, Mohammed Donkor, have been cited as a key factor in the election outcome (Here, here , and here).

Seven of the mining constituencies voted skirt and blouse—a phenomenon in which voters choose to vote for different candidates in the presidential and parliamentary elections. They are Akwatia, Nkoranza South, Jomoro, Assin North, Asikuma/Odoben/Brakwa, Sissala East, and Fomena.

President Akufo-Addo won all but one constituency—Sissala East—in the skirt and blouse pattern.

Other constituencies the party lost have long been swing constituencies, which means the party was not guaranteed the seats. For instance, Nkoranza South, Amenfi East and Evalue Ajomoro Gwira.

The Jomoro Constituency had been an NDC stronghold, with the Convention People’s Party breaking the jinx in 2012 before the NPP grabbed it from the NDC in 2016.

The NPP also lost the Fomena Constituency which went to an independent candidate from the party’s stock—Andrew Asiama—whom the party sacked from its fold after he filed to contest the elections as an independent candidate.

The figures show that contrary to the NPP running mate, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh’s claims the party lost less than 20 seats in the 2020 elections, it lost 14 seats.

From the above, it is misleading that the NPP would attribute its loss of some of the seats in the 2020 general elections to the government’s fight against galamsey. There is evidence of internal wrangling, and swing constituency voter patterns while the President who claimed he put his presidency on the line benefited from skirt and blouse voting in some of the mining constituencies where the party lost parliamentary seats.