Big Win for Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings

Akua Bonsu

In 2007 when the NPP met at Legon to elect their leader, although Nana Akufo-Addo emerged as the flagbearer of the then party in power, accusations of delegates bribing and elitism haunted the NPP and they persisted all through the general elections of 2008. At the next opportunity, they expanded the franchise to include the party’s rank and file. The resulting flagbearer election in August of 2010, which saw 80% of as many as 115,000 votes to Nana Akuffo-Addo illustrated the NPP’s commitment to the tenets of democracy, which was hailed around the globe.

This year the NDC is in government with a first term president whose abject ineptitude formed the basis of an intra-party challenge for the party’s nomination, a first in Ghana’s history. Another reason for Nana Konadu Rawlings’ challenge of President Mills is that the latter had brought in some “greedy bastards” who were not part of the struggling grassroots through whose efforts the party returned to power. As these “foreigners” enjoy the perks of government, the foot soldiers of the party have been left to fend for themselves.

Not a day goes when we do not hear of desperate NDC foot soldiers expressing their displeasure about the poor performance of their own party in government, and how they cannot find jobs to feed their families. Finally former president Jerry John Rawlings answered their cries and began echoing those cries. Still an unresponsive Mills continued to ignore them and enjoy the perks of government with only the “greedy bastards.”

So Konadu did the unthinkable; she threw her hat in the ring to wrestle power and control of the NDC from the sitting president. Her challenge necessitated an intra-party presidential nomination election, and given that the NPP had set a globally acclaimed standard for intra-party leadership election, the expectation was that the party that claims to represent the masses would at the very least emulate the NPP concept of expanding the franchise to the NDC rank and file. But that is when the “greedy bastards” went to work.

Money and intimidation began to run amok. The first recipients of the bribing spree were members of the NDC national executive. They were bribed to maintain the delegate system to keep the number of voters low to make it easier to bribe. There is a limit to how far $90 million bribing budget could go. Thus the NDC missed an opportunity to expand the voting franchise to the foot soldiers through whose sweat and toil it came to power in the first place. Still that was not enough – the “greedy bastards” were not going to leave anything to chance.

They began to openly threaten delegates, majority of who worked for the Mills administration in one capacity or another, to tow the GAME line or risk losing their jobs. These poor delegates faced a very easy decision: take a bribe, keep your job and vote for Atta Mills, or vote for Konadu Rawlings and risk losing your job. Although the votes were secret, no one was in a hurry to risk losing their jobs, and the result was a lopsided victory for the president with Nana Konadu Rawlings polling only 90 votes out of 3,000. But here is where she won.

Each vote that Konadu Rawlings received represents over 1,000 rank and file votes. The NDC foot soldiers are firmly in the Rawlings’ corner, and that represented the fear going in. Nana Konadu Rawlings, in an expanded franchise system similar to the NPP grassroots election, would have easily garnered 90,000 votes to Atta Mills’ 25,000 since each Atta Mills vote represents only about 10 rank and file votes.

Although President Mills won massively in a delegate system, his dreaded grassroots election would have produced a different result. Not only does that give solace to Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings in knowing that Mills still lacks grassroots support within their party, it also represents a scary prospect for a president who cannot manipulate the 2012 election to be restricted to delegates only. In 2012, every registered voter would have the opportunity to cast a ballot. When all ballots have been counted in December 2012, Nana Konadu Rawlings would finally have the opportunity to claim victory in being vindicated that President Mills was simply unelectable. She would then be able to celebrate her victory and reclaim what would then become her part