THE beautiful side of party politics was displayed at Kwabeng at the weekend when Messrs Kwasi Amoako Atta of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Emmanuel Atta Twum of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the main contestants in the Atiwa bye-election, joined hands on a common platform to appeal to their supporters not to do anything to mar the bye-election.
This is the first time NPP and NDC contestants in a parliamentary election had come together on a common platform.
The bye-election, which is slated for August 31, became necessary as a result of the death of Mr Kwasi Annoh Ankama, the MP for the area, in the middle of the year.
The bye-election, dubbed “Atta and Atta contest” by the people of the constituency, since the two men have a common name (Atta), is expected to be keen because despite the area being an NPP stronghold, the NDC had, within a short period, provided a number of social amenities for the people to win their support.
Mr Amoako Atta, who is the Presiding Member of the Atiwa District Assembly, had, earlier in the morning, gone to the office of Mr Atta Twum, the District Chief Executive (DCE) for Atiwa, to confer with him before an assembly meeting slated for the same day.
After a joint breakfast in the DCE’s office, the two men joined hands and walked to the Anglican Chapel, about 100 yards away from the venue of the assembly meeting, and took their seats, after which they took turns to appeal to their various supporters not to do any negative thing that would mar the beauty of the bye-election.
Mr Amoako Atta, who set the ball rolling, said, “We are all Ghanaians belonging to different political camps and this should not make us enemies. So I appeal to all of you assembly members to tell your constituents not to do anything that will mar the election.
“We the two Attas are even friends so if you want either of us to be your MP, the only thing to do is canvass for votes for that person in a friendly atmosphere, since only one of us can occupy the seat to help develop the area.”
For his part, Mr Atta Twum said the area needed the support of everybody and that since the two of them were friends who had known each other for a long period, the best legacy voters could bequeath to the area was good conduct in the election to make it free from violence.
That, he said, would help accelerate the development of the area.
The DCE expressed the hope that the assembly members would be able to prevail on the electorate to ensure peace during the election.
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