In November 2020, the nation will be going to the polls to elect a president and Members of Parliament. Voters will have the choice to retain incumbents or elect who they feel are superior options from among their challengers. Ahead of that, parties must themselves decide if they are happy to present those incumbents. These decisions must be based on a proper assessment on the performance of those incumbents, the image they portray of the party and above all, their chances of retaining the seats should they be presented to the wider electorate once more.  Kwesimintsim, like all other constituencies, will face the same choice. As a seat that has long supported the governing New Patriotic Party and is a reliable source of votes for it in the Western Region, the choice should weigh even heavier on the constituency party. Its decision will impact not just the parliamentary election but also the presidential election. An unpopular candidate might cause apathy among the base, discourage independents and embolden the opposition who do not normally count the constituency among its winnable seats. This requires a sober and impartial assessment of the incumbent’s performance and his chances for re-election.  The current Member of Parliament in Kwesimintsim won a primary contest against an incumbent before going on to win the 2016 general elections. It was expected that he would do better than the person he had been elected to replace. Kwesimintsim has always been a critical seat for the NPP and there are certain expectations of our representative. He or she must have the eloquence, the national profile and the competence that would make it difficult for the constituency to be ignored in the distribution of the proverbial national cake. These were the minimum expectations that he was expected to meet. It is the kind of representation that the constituency has been used since its creation under the fourth republic. A scorecard on his performance should thus include these as well as his own performance and that of other MPs in the same period and under similar circumstances.    Broken promises Before we even address his performance by any objective measures, we must first analyse it in the light of the very promises that swept him into office.  As a candidate, our MP promised a golden era of job creation and opportunity for the youth. In particular, he promised that he would use his experience and connections to the port authority, where he had long been an official, to procure jobs for locals. If there are any young people in Kwesimintsim who have had this promise fulfilled in their lives, this writer is waiting to hear from them. It is instructive that in parliament, this “experience” was strangely not enough to get our MP on the select committee that has oversight over that sector. Why would a three-decade veteran in port affairs not be selected for a committee on which there are others with little to no knowledge or experience sitting? Or is there a competence issue?  In the last three years during which we have been represented by the MP, there has been precious little by way of infrastructure development in the constituency. Contrary to the many assurances that he gave us, there have been no major social infrastructure projects or upgrades to existing ones. If the MP has not been receiving his common fund, maybe he should tell us. If he has been, then maybe he needs to tell us what he has been using it for. Interestingly, with primary season approaching and rumours of a credible challenge simmering, we see him attempting to answer this challenge. Will the people of Kwesimintsim be bought off by this cynical ploy? We live to see.  Representing the constituency Never in our history as a constituency have we had such a silent MP. On the floor of parliament, on radio and television, there is barely a squeak out of our MP. With such a determined silence, how is he representing us? And it is not as if he is very active in committee work too. He is only a member of two committees, the bare minimum for any MP under parliament’s rules. It is no wonder that he has not been able to lobby to bring any projects to the constituency. All of our checks also show that he is not doing any “behind the scenes” lobbying either. It is not just the constituency that he is depriving of his representation. He has refused to or been unable to represent and project the achievements of the party on any platform. Unlike other MPs that do all they can to defend and promote the party, our MP remains silent even as our opponents do all they can to diminish our achievements. Since becoming an MP, he has not held a single town hall event to explain to constituents the many great policies of this government or to listen to their concerns so he can articulate them where it matters. So what exactly is our MP doing?  Relations with constituents  Even when an MP is not doing what he was elected to do, the least we can have from him is cordial and respectful relations with the people who put him in office. Yet, even here, our MP refuses to oblige. The only people that he has time for are his most devoted supporters and others that are under his material influence. Honest dissent has been criminalised and good faith objections are seen as personal affronts to our MP and the cabal that surrounds him. Normally, as the political leader of the constituency, he would bear responsibility for the division in the constituency party, which is at the worst ever level now. But in this particular case, his actions, inactions and general style of leadership are in fact to blame. His singling out of only supporters to deal with; his refusal to engage with those who offer constructive criticism; and his unfortunate use of tribal considerations in his approach to leadership are just a few of the ways in which he has left the party weakened and demoralised ahead of a crucial election.  But he’s only in his first term? From his partisans, we have heard this laughable excuse. Even if bad leadership were mitigated by excuses, this would be an exceptionally poor one. While we hesitate to mention names, there are a number of first termers in this parliament who have not been prevented from providing effective and competent leadership by the infancy of their tenure. We do not even have to go very far from Kwesimintsim to see a first-term MP that is offering eloquent representation, delivering on promises and strengthening their parties for the elections ahead. And what is the motive, I wonder, for keeping a man in a job he is terrible at in the hope that he might improve? A man who has decades of working experience under his belt as he does should even have found it easier to adapt and perform than some of his younger colleagues who would not dream of offering this excuse to their constituents. If he hasn’t been able to master his brief yet, then I’m sorry but Kwesimintsim has to find someone who can and the earlier we do, the better it will be for us. If the framers of the constitution didn’t believe a four year-term was enough, they would have made the first terms “non-score”. But they didn’t, as President Mahama learnt in 2016.  So what now? By any measure, our MP has failed. He has not done what he promised to do; he has not done what we expected him to do, and he has no excuses. There is still time for us to find someone else who can represent us better than he is doing if we are to retain the seat for the NPP and regain the trust of the entire constituency in the party. Honourable Joe Mensah has to go and if he is concerned about the “investment” that he is yet to recoup, as we have heard he is concerned about, some of us will be ready to contribute our widow’s mite to top up the ex-gratia that he will receive at the end of his term.