Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress, Mustapha Gbande, has accused the ruling New Patriotic Party of leading the country down a path of moral destruction.

According to him, the alleged incidents of vote-buying that characterized the just-concluded Kumawu elections are blight on the country’s political and democratic development.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, he said the NPP government had sanctioned a blatant vote-buying scheme to undermine the entire electoral process in favour of their candidate, Ernest Anim.

“The NPP is leading a path that destroys the morals of our society. That, Aisha, the NPP government in this bye-election engaged in what we simply call vote-buying, physical cash in exchange of votes. That is so sad for our democracy. You’ll see regional chairmen, you’ll see NPP leadership, you’ll see appointees, CEOs virtually doling out money for people to vote.”

Mr. Gbande noted that despite the flagrant vote-buying and inducements, the NPP had only succeeded at increasing their total votes in the constituency by a small margin, in comparison to the NDC which had done much better.

He attributed the small marginal increase of the NPP to voter apathy as a result of the ruling government’s failure to bring development to the Kumawu people.

“And even upon that, Aisha, do you know that the only margin increase for the NPP between 2020 parliamentary election and today is just about 250. That is the only increase they have made whereas we in the NDC have made over a 1,500 increase in the votes that we had in 2020. Clearly, that is an increase of about 8.5% and they have done a very low margin of increase.

“Again if you look at the voter apathy against government, even upon the money they’ve shared, the machines they’ve moved into the Kumawu constituency which is more or less a risk for our movement in that constituency upon all the voter apathy against them they should be very worried.”

For this reason, Mustapha Gbande said the NDC despite the defeat is very excited and satisfied with the feat they chalked in the by-election.

He added that it also proves the NPP have no message for Ghanaians come 2024.

“We in the NDC are very excited that we’ve put a strong fight particularly that Kumawu is predominantly a stronghold, I mean, a backyard of the NPP since 1992 and that they actually went for a bye-election  without anything to show.

“They have no message, they have no campaign, except that government approved and sanctioned by His Excellency Nana Addo engaged in unethical political practice of vote buying.”