The newly elected Member of Parliament for the Kumawu constituency, Ernest Yaw Anim says his unity campaign during the by-election that elected him to parliament helped reunite members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

According to him, the party has been faced with internal disputes for some time, but he was able to revamp unity during his campaign at the Kumawu by-election.

He said this in an exclusive interview on Joy Prime’s morning show on Wednesday, while revealing the strategies he applied to win the by-election.

"Because of my upbringing, I always don’t want division wherever I find myself. So, one of the things that I did was try to unite the party front within the constituency. I tried to bring everybody, including executives and delegates, together. Those were the things I was able to do right before and after the primaries."

"So for the very first time after a primary, you see all the other aspirants coming together to rally behind the winner, and that was one good thing we did. Everybody within the town saw that there was unity within the party… So that unity message worked for us. It unified our party for a long time," the MP stated.

Ernest Anim said that years ago, hardly would aspirants of the party in a primary support the campaign of the winner in the general election, but his ideology changed the practice.

The Kumawu by-election in the Ashanti region was organised following the demise of the constituency’s Member of Parliament, Philip Basoah, in March 2023.

At the end of the by-election, Mr. Anim polled 15,264 votes to beat the National Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate, Kwasi Amankwaa, and two Independent Candidates, both of whom are called Kwaku Duah.

Despite the fact that Mr. Anim was closely contested by the NDC candidate, he considered one of the independent candidates as his major opponent, not the NDC, claiming the Mahama-led NDC party is full of lies.

"We were prepared for everybody, and I knew that we were going to win. But we wanted to win convincingly so that they wouldn’t sit on the radio or TV and say all manner of things."

In the meantime, the MP said he is focused on developing his constituency within the shortest possible time to be able to retain his seat and represent his people in parliament once more come 2024.