There are a handful of British-Ghanaian political candidates that have either stood for UK parliamentary election in a constituency seat before or are doing so for the first time on 4 July.
We share details of ones we've spotted as we prepare for the Parliamentary general elections on 4 July.
This post is the last in a series that looks at British Ghanaian names in UK politics.
In 2021, we at AKADi Magazine, profiled the leading British Ghanaians in UK politics in our sixth digital magazine issue. We called it ‘Ghanaians in Politics’.
We take a look at what they’ve been doing since and highlight some newer faces on the political scene.
Anita Boateng is standing as the Conservative Party candidate in Bridgend in Wales. She previously stood at Bridge in Redbridge in the local elections and came second out of seven candidates.
She is a government affairs, policy and communications specialist with extensive experience working at the highest levels of government and media.
Anita served three Cabinet Ministers as a government special adviser from 2016-2019, including the defacto Deputy Prime Minister in the Cabinet Office, the Lord Chancellor and the Work and Pensions Secretary.
Anita is a former political producer of BBC Question Time and a regular political commentator. She has a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Oxford.
Evelyn Akoto is standing as Labour’s parliamentary candidate on 4 July for South West Wiltshire in the 2024 UK General Election.
She is a Labour councillor in the Old Kent Road ward in the London Borough of Southwark and has represented Southwark since 2014 having been re-elected in 2018 and 2022.
Evelyn is currently the borough’s cabinet member for Health and Wellbeing, leads a commission on maternal inequalities, and oversees Southwark’s Public Health and Adult Social Care departments.
She was born in Ghana and migrated with her family to Southwark when she was six years old in the 1980s. She comes from a military background. She settled in the Aylesbury Estate in Walworth, Southwark.
Her achievements include setting up the council’s first food insecurity strategy for struggling families and setting up the Holiday Food and Fun programme to tackle food poverty.
Evelyn has a background in international relations, but she decided to get into local politics after wanting to address the concerns and issues that were affecting her community.
She aims to focus on crime and anti-social behaviour if she wins the South West Wiltshire seat.
Sidney Yankson is the Conservative Party candidate for Southampton Itchen. He previously stood in 2022 in the Redcliffe ward in the Kensington and Chelsea local election, where he came third out of seven candidates.
His parents were born in Ghana and moved to London in the 1960s, where he was born and raised.
He read physics at Durham University, served in the British Army Reserves with the Honourable Artillery Company for six years in his 20s and has worked in Hong Kong.
He is a keen sportsman and plays a range of sports including football, cricket, and rugby. He also skis and cycles.
Iddrisu Sufyan is a Reform UK candidate in Coventry East constituency in the UK Parliamentary general election.
Iddrisu was a soldier for many years in the British Army. He is currently a paralegal, and volunteers for Coventry Citizens Advice Bureau.
He previously stood in the 2019 general elections as a candidate for the Brexit Party, coming third out of five candidates. He stood in the 2021 local election in Westwood, Coventry for Reform UK and came seventh out of seven.
In 2023, he stood in the local election in Wyken in Coventry, coming fifth out of six candidates.
New kid on the block
Jovan Owusu-Nepaul is standing to be the next Labour MP for Clacton, Frinton, Jaywick, Walton-on-the-Naze and the surrounding villages in the same ward as Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. This is the first time that he is standing for election.
Join us in the next post where we will be profiling British Ghanaian councillors.
This article is an original piece written by AKADi Magazine. The contents of this page cannot be reproduced without permission.
Comments