Mills, Rawlingses And The Fate Of NDC In 2012

By Anthony Kwaku Amoah

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the Mills-Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration will be the first regime to go back into political wilderness after steering the affairs of this country for the mandatory four-year one term.

So long as the storms of disunity, acrimony, hatred, dirty propaganda and name callings continue to blow through the rank and file of the party up to even the grassroots, chances of the ruling NDC to say bye to power next year are very high.

Sometimes, it is funny to hear some NDC apologists defending the practice of insulting the President of this country and the leader of the NDC by leading members of the first gentleman’s own party as a sign of strong internal party democracy.

What, however, wonders me is the incessant attacks on President Mills by his own political Godfather, ex-President Jerry John Rawlings, whose party the sitting President now leads. It is a fact that, as far as the existence of the NDC for now is concerned, the contributions of the two Johns (i.e. Mills and Jerry) are paramount.

The assumption here is that for any electoral victory to come the way of NDC, the two giants need to be in tandem and to complement each other in the performance of party activities and programmes.

In addition to this, some NDC critics of the Rawlingses sometimes even allege that Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings is a great influence on former President Rawlings. This therefore connotes that there is no way one can decouple the two when it comes to taking sensitive issues bothering on say, politics. For Rawlings to be at one end of a political decision and Konadu also holding onto the other side, we have been told, will be a difficult thing. No wonder that manifested itself when Nana Konadu boldly came out just recently to unseat the ‘bad’ NDC yutong bus driver, President John Evans Atta Mills at Sunyani to enable her lead the party into the 2012 presidential election which, though, never materialised.

It is a fact that the incumbent NDC party is now at the cross-roads as to whether it still has a broad support base to enable it retain power in 2012 or not. Anyway, I can ‘commend’ some ministers of states, government functionaries, party executives and party faithful like the Fiifi Kweteys, Okudzetos, Aseidu Nketias, Barbara Asamoahs and the rest for their day-to-day propaganda works for the party which, in one way or the other, also contributed to the retention of the ‘bad’ driver of the NDC yutong bus.

I do not believe the Ghanaian electorate have yet forgotten the derogatory remarks traded at both sides of the divide in the just-ended NDC contest. We have been made to understand by Papa J that the NDC government has already lost power few weeks after the party was inducted into power in 2009. To Papa J, President Mills is a corrupt, failed, disappointed leader and a traitor who must be thrown away by delegates of their own party if the NDC is bent on maintaining power next year. The same founder has made it clear that the ‘honest’ party leader has also succeeded in surrounding himself with greedy bastards as his advisers and ministers of state.

The worried former military man, who prior to coming into power of the NDC was always hailing his former vice-president, Mills describing him as a ‘saint’ and the only one who could take Ghana to the Promised Land, has recently gone public that he had made a wrong choice. Being a founder of the NDC and having realised that his influence in the party is very great, ex-President Rawlings had no option than to warn the delegates prior to the Sunyani Congress not to make the mistake by voting President Mills as the standard bearer of the umbrella party if not he (JJ) would not campaign for the party in 2012. Though some of the comments made by Jerry Rawlings were not received very well by some pro-Mills government people and ministers, how to come out publicly to either reply or attack or bring to order the behaviour of the man (i.e. JJ) was not an easy thing for anybody to do.

I remember how at the very beginning of the campaigning, the General Secretary of the NDC, Mr. Johnson Aseidu Nketia, on behalf of his colleague national executives interpreted the party’s constitution debarring some personalities like the founder, constituency, regional and national executives, as well as ministers and deputy ministers of state and MPs from publicly taking sides in the campaigns.

That order was never regarded as the founder himself was more of his wife’s propaganda secretary. We have not yet forgotten the key role played by Kofi Adams not to talk of the maverick Member of Parliament for Lower Manya Krobo, Hon Michael Teye Nyaunu (alias MTN). In fact, if I want to comment on the kind of filths heaped on President Mills and his team mates even long before this recent Congress was held, one will agree with me that the ruling NDC is gradually entering the court of defeat and by the close of this year, the expectations are that the NPP can be sure of taking charge of this country, come 2013.

If ex-President Rawlings’ bold declaration that the NDC will lose next year should the party delegates disobey him by voting President Mills as its flagbearer again is anything to go by, then I can say with confidence that defeat has stated smelling around the NDC camp.

I do not think the symbolic hand-raising of President Mills immediately after declaring him the winner of the recent flagbearship slot at Sunyani by Papa J was enough evidence that the man has changed his mind to rally behind Mills. I believe my reader heard the serious allegations of electoral fraud and impropriety raised by the campaign team of Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings in less than five days after President Mills was declared winner at Sunyani. Anyway, whether all these still go to confirm that the party is practising internal democracy or not, let us leave it in the hands of 2012 to determine.