Kyerematen Forms The Floating-Voters Party (F-VP)

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

His desperation for power is becoming more than abjectly embarrassing. It simply makes the man look like a shameless charlatan and a pathological narcissist. Touring the New York Metropolis recently, Ghana's former Ambassador to the United States, Alan John Kwadwo "Quitman" Kyerematen, was reported to have met with one of the local chapters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in a bid to swaying its members and potential delegates to vote against a third presidential run by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the twice-defeated NPP presidential candidate.

The problem here, though, is that "Alan Cash," the political petname of Mr. Kyerematen, is also a twice-defeated NPP presidential-candidate aspirant. In other words, he is an even far weaker candidate for president than the petit man with the pachyderm's brain he is seeking to shove out of the way. Mr. Kyerematen has also never even run for any local office - be it at the assembly or parliamentary level - in his life.

And so, when he swoons and convulses that the "thought of the NPP's losing the next presidential election is frightening and difficult to contemplate," it is simply not clear who Mr. Cash is either trying to fool or hoodwink. He also sounds like the most atrocious liar that ever lived. The self-proclaimed Fante-man from Edweso, Bompata (where yours truly was baptized by his maternal grandfather, the Rev. T. H. Sintim, and the Rev. Ohemeng, Alan Cash's paternal uncle) and Patasi, would have staunch party members and supporters believe that he stands a better chance of winning over "floating voters" than his arch-political nemesis, the former NPP-Member of Parliament from Akyem-Abuakwa South.

But the fact of the matter is that floating voters are "supplementary voters," they are not the kind of trusty voters upon whom any major and / or viable political party depends to establish both its presence and readiness for governance. And interestingly, and ironically, it is this very group of core party bricks-and-mortar for whom Alan Cash has the least bit of respect, and whom he rudely and imperiously abandoned in the lead-up to Election 2008.

And so for him to pretend as if the core party members and supporters of the NPP have the memory banks of poultry-farm chickens constitutes not only the very height of arrogance, on the part of Mr. Cash, it is also inexcusably insolent. Indeed, I wish that I could affirm that he remarkably understands what it means when Mr. Kyerematen declares that the first priority is for the party to close ranks, fix the party, and rally behind one consensus candidate, but I sincerely cannot. To be certain, it is shockingly shameless on his part for Mr. Kyerematen to presume to stand over and above party rules and the ethical code of unity in diversity.

For Alan Cash, it is either "Unity Behind Alan Cash" or let the party go to the dogs, which was precisely what he did in the wake of his resounding defeat in the 2007 NPP presidential primary. And so how can anybody rally behind any presidential aspirant who so vacuously claims to have the strongest drawing power among "floating voters," and yet has absolutely no respect for core party voters?

In other words, it does not seem to occur to Mr. Kyerematen that his floating voters can only make a heck of a lot of difference at the polls by latching onto the firm proverbial shoulders and pates of core party voters. But that this man who has never even ran for a district-assembly election would so cavalierly presume to take core NPP voters for granted, only goes to show Ghanaians the sort of stuff of which Alan Cash is made.

Then also, what is the use of his pontifical claim of understanding "the psychology of swing voters," if Mr. Kyerematen cannot even half-appreciate the psychology of those who make the New Patriotic Party the formidable and enviable political organization that it is today? We are also wondering how Alan Cash can, literally, grovel before President Mahama for the latter's endorsement to contest the CEO's post at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the lead-up to Election 2012, and then hopeless trounced, scurry back onto his feet and vigorously presume to contest his former benefactor as a credible presidential candidate at the polls?

Would he not be regarded as a laughing stock by voters and supporters of both major parties? And just how would the rest of the nation think about the level of intellectual and emotional maturity, and decency, of the delegates who elected such a morally exhausted candidate?

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Board Member, The Nassau Review
May 19, 2014
E-mail: [email protected]
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