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Among the 12 female candidates contesting the 33 parliamentary seats in the Eastern Region for the December 07 elections is Mrs Dufie Dedo Agyarko-Kusi, contesting the Lower Manya Krobo constituency, on the ticket of the New Patriotic party (NPP). The constituency is a stronghold of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), having won the seat since 1996. A product of Mofra Trom, Wesley Girls Senior High School and the University of Ghana where she was one of the youngest students at the age of 18 in 1968, she holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in French, a Masters in law from the University of Paris. She worked as a translator in French and Spanish at several international organizations including UNESCO for many years and later became a freelance translator. She currently works as a legal consultant to international organizations and a member of the Ghana Education Service Council (GES). In 2004 she contested the primary of the NPP with two males who later stepped down for her but lost to the NDC�s Mr Michael Teye-Nyaunu. In 2008 she did not contest the seat due to bereavement, so her younger brother, Mr Kwasi Agyarko-Kyerematen, contested but lost again to the NDC. Mrs Agyarko- Kusi decided to stage a comeback and contested the primary with a male counterpart and won to contest the seat on behalf of the NPP. Mrs Agyarko-Kusi told the GNA that she was optimistic that this year she would win the seat to represent her people. She said her constituency was plagued with many social issues such as high maternal deaths and poverty due to lack of education among many women and that her passion was education, especially among children and when given the nod she would work to overcome those challenges. Mrs Agyarko-Kusi said she believed that a literate community was the key to reducing poverty and its resultant consequences in the area and appealed to the people of the constituency to vote for her to champion the cause of women and children to transform the communities. In her view, the people were tired of unfulfilled promises over the years and it was high time they changed their voting pattern, adding that 20 years of the NDC representation was enough and needed to change.