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President John Mahama said his track record in the Ashanti region would necessitate the one million votes the National Democratic Congress have set their eyes on.
Party executives in the region have mapped out a strategy to win as many as a million votes in the region.
This the NDC believes will make victory in the 2016 general election a certainty for the party.
Read more: NDC's Agenda 50/50 is 'tribal campaign' - Nana Addo
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Statistics in the 2008 election shows that the NDC succeeded in winning over 400, 000 votes in the Ashanti Region, considered the stronghold of the opposition NPP, and in the 2012 general election, they increased their votes in the region to 612,000 votes.
In an interview with the Garden City Radio in Kumasi, President Mahama said the "NDC is going up in Ashanti and so our regional executives have set a target; based on the track record of the government and what we have done, they believe that we can increase our votes here. And I have been encouraging them to do so."
"Ashanti is nobody’s battleground…If you have noticed, Ashanti is important to the NDC because they gave us the third highest numbers in the 2012 elections. They gave us the third highest numbers and so the Ashanti votes are very important to the NDC."
But the presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Akufo-Addo, said the NDCS’ mantra of operation “1 million votes in Ashanti” will not happen in the 2016 general elections.
Read more: NDC's 1 Million Votes In Ashanti Region ...
Nana Addo described it as nothing more than a mirage which will not see the light of day.
He assured NPP faithfuls that the Party’s leadership has targeted nothing less than 85% of the popular vote in the Ashanti region.