The Fallacy of an Alan-Nana Photo Finish

BY BOAKYE AGYARKO

In the past few days, several attempts have been made in the press to spin the results of both constituency and regional elections of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in order to hurry public opinion and prevent a true appreciation of the facts. This spin is summed up in the contrived headlines of the Wednesday 6th January, 2010 edition of the Ghanaian Chronicle, which sought to portray a "photo-finish" in a hypothetical race between Nana Akufo-Addo and Alan Kyerematen for the flag-bearership of the NPP.

As is to be expected, the radio stations picked up the headlines to make hay in the sunshine. The content of the current discussion clearly shows that a lot of the so called significant members of the party have not learned any lessons and are not ready to do so. Here is an example. Hon. Maxwell Kofi Jumah, Member of Parliament for Asokwa has been on air and at pains in describing which newly elected officials of the party are loyal to Alan Kyerematen, and those supposedly loyal to Nana Akufo-Addo. This is the last thing any member of the party should expect or accept from a Member of Parliament who belongs to the NPP.

First, his posture like those who think like him, stresses loyalty to persons rather than loyalty to party. He seems to have forgotten that these officers were elected to manage the affairs of the party for the next four years and not to merely vote for a flagbearer. Such a posture is as shameful as it is dangerous. Secondly, it betrays a lack of lessons learned from our immediate past experience. From 2005 to 2008 various elected officials and persons were labeled, rightly or wrongly, as belonging to camp A, B or C with detrimental effect. Through the length and breadth of the party, organizational cohesion and efficiency were severely compromised. A constituency chairman who had been labeled as belonging to camp A could no longer work harmoniously and without suspicion with his/her secretary or organizer who was labeled to belong to another camp, resulting in the breakdown of the harmonious relationships required to win the constituency. This cancer was allowed to spread to the parliamentary level. There are recorded instances where a parliamentary candidate perceived to belong to a camp different from his constituency executives were immediately set upon a collision course.

Learning the lessons from these needlessly painful experiences, the party pushed through a set of overwhelmingly popular reforms to mitigate the effects of these problems. It is therefore unfortunate that it should take a Member of Parliament to seek to undermine these monumental achievements of the party, which are aimed at our collective good. Hon. Maxwell Kofi Jumah has gone on air to identify regions that were supposedly won by Alan Kyerematen loyalist. Even if this was true, and thank God it is patently false, it is simply irresponsible since it only sets up an unnecessary division. If a candidate other than Alan Kyerematen wins the nomination, should the so-called loyalist identified by the Honorable Member of Parliament for Asokwa expect full trust and cooperation from the winning presidential candidate? There are good reasons why there is a regulation on the books of the NPP barring elected officials of the party from openly identifying themselves with any particular candidate. It is therefore unfortunate that the Honorable Member for Asokwa should be the one cheer-leading the flagrant violation of our own rules. I was of the furlong hope that he would use his abundant energies in fostering harmonious relationships among the newly elected executives rather than knocking their heads together at this early stage of party reorganization. The Honorable Member for Asokwa made an open claim on radio that Alan Kyerematen loyalists had won seven out of the ten regions, even though at the time of writing, the regional elections for Ashanti had not been conducted. But what is this wild assertion supposed to mean? Does it mean that in each of the regions, all the elected positions were won by people loyal to Alan Kyerematen or that, for example, a particular position, say the chairmanship was won by Alan Kyerematen loyalists? If all the nine positions contested were not won by Alan's loyalists, then what does a “win” mean? Under such a scenario, is the Honorable Member for Asokwa not merely setting brothers at each other's throat, and to what purpose? What if a Nana Akufo-Addo loyalist bought the bait and came out with facts to dispute the baseless assertion of the Asokwa MP that Alan is in control of more regional executives? The more these claims are made the more one begins to appreciate the advantages in extending significantly the electoral college to include all polling station executives, among others. How come we did not here similar boasts when the polling station executives and constituency executives were being elected? Should we then begin questioning the motive behind those who campaigned in 2009 against the extension of the franchise to the grassroots of the party? I believe there are very good reasons to restrain ourselves.

It is now important and necessary to set out the facts about the Electoral College which will elect the next presidential candidate for the NPP, in order to put to rest, this dubious and patently dishonest assertion. Article 12 (6) of the Constitution of the NPP states that; “the Party's Presidential Candidate shall be elected by the following delegates:

i. The National Council

ii. The National Executive Committee

iii. The Regional Executive Committee

iv. The Constituency Executive Committee

v. The Electoral Area Coordinators

vi. The five (5) Polling Station

Executive Officers in each Polling Station

vii. National Council of Elders

viii. All NPP Members of Parliament

ix. Past National Officers

x. Three (3) representatives of each of the Special Organs of the Party

xi. Twelve (12) delegates from every external branch as defined under section 8(2) of this Constitution

xii. Founding Members who were signatories to the registration documents of the Party at the Electoral Commission

xiii. Fifteen Patrons to be elected from among themselves

xiv. One TESCON representative from each recognized tertiary institution

xv. All New Patriotic Party card bearing Ministers and deputy Ministers when the Party is in government From the provisions of the Constitution, there shall be a maximum of 120,000 people to be designated as voters in the Electoral College. Of this number, 105,345 (87.79%) are polling station executives. 4,805 (4.0%) are Electoral Area Coordinators. 3,680 (3.1%) are Constituency Executives and 170 (0.14%) are Regional Executives. These are the hard facts.

It is in the light of these hard facts that I want to review the contrived argument presented in the Ghanaian Chronicle of Wednesday, 6th January, 2010. The Chronicle boldly asserts that a hypothetical race between Nana Akufo-Addo and Alan Kyerematen will be a photo-finish because while Nana Akufo-Addo has won a majority (88.97% of the 3,680) of the positions at the Constituency level, Alan Kyerematen has won a majority at the 170 Regional Officer positions.

Here are some of the fallacies and willful deceptions of the argument. First, the comparison is based only on 3.24% of the Electoral College (3680 Constituency officers plus 170 Regional executives). It completely ignores the sentiments and views of 96.76% of the electorate. I do not see how this deliberate omission can represent an honest and informed analysis of the situation or indeed any other situation, when the views of 96.76% of those who have a definite say in the matter are ignored. In this equation, one ought to ask where the 105,345 newly empowered polling station executives and the 4,805 newly elected and empowered Electoral Area Coordinators are going to lean.

Second, even with the two categories of officers which this “analysis” covers, the number of Constituency Executives far outweighs the number of Regional Executives. While there are 3,680 constituency executives of the party, there are only 170 regional executive officers. In other words, for every one regional officer, there are about 21 constituency officers: a ratio of 21 to 1. How then does the Chronicle come to this “photo-finish” conclusion?

As a party seeking to further unify its ranks, such misguided and self-serving “analysis” does us no good. It is as if some people are seeking to prop up their preferred choices by false propaganda, irrespective of what it does to party unity.

The Apostle Paul admonished the divided church in Corinth, as written in 1st Corinthians, Chapter 3, verses 3 “ 9. Parts of it read, “You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For when one says, ˜I am of Paul and another, ˜I am of Apollos, are you not mere men? What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through who you came to believe “ as the Lord assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.

As Paul admonished the Church at Corinth so do I admonish all those who are in a desperate attempt at sowing the seeds of discord among us in order to disrupt our forward march to victory.