Monday,
June 25, 2012
Once again, Kofi Adams, the
ventriloquist for the Rawlingses, is out to foul our air with the announcement
that the Rawlingses are likely to form a new political party. The sweetness of
the pudding is in the eating. Let them bring it on!
We
are told that speaking on Adom FM’s Dwaso Nsem today, Adams—while not being emphatic
about the formation of a new party based on the principles and ideologies of
the Rawlingses—told show host (Adakabre Frimpong Manso) that: “Don’t be
surprised if a new party is formed with the intention of salvaging an existing
party.” (Myjoyonline, June 25, 2012).
We
won’t even wait for anything from the Rawlingses themselves before reacting to
this announcement. They may come out to deny it but behave clandestinely to
pursue that mission. We know them all too well for this kind of con politics.
Forming
a new party is not the solution to their woes. What will save them is simple:
that they end their self-seeking quests and agree to work with others whose
strategies for party work and nation building conflicts with theirs but may turn
out to be better. They have only one option, which is to reconcile with those
they have hurt and remain where they have been all these years under the
umbrella of the NDC.
Aren’t we fed up with their kind
of leg-pulling? If they think forming a new political party is the best move to
re-establish their shattered political career, let them go ahead to do so and
end this testing of Ghanaians’ patience. The political scare-crows that they have
turned themselves into, they are neither here nor there. They have proved that in
Ghanaian politics, we have “bats”—neither animals nor birds but bearing
features of both.
By their own admission, they will
not campaign for the NDC although Rawlings still retains the NDC founder-and-father
accolade and chairmanship of the National Executive Committee of the party.
Nana Konadu lost her First Vice Chairman position because she allowed her parochial
ambitions to overtake her genuine desire to build the NDC.
Now, they are hamstrung with one
foot outside the NDC camp while keeping the other one in it. How do they expect
to make any progress in this manner? The choice is there: to either listen to
reason and make peace to return the other foot into the NDC camp or to be bold
enough to drag both feet out of it. No more testing of pulses!!
What prevents them from following
the laid-down procedures to form and announce their party instead of playing
hide-and-seek with the public as is implicated by their dilly-dallying? We are
fed up with this wishy-washy spate of confirmations and denials of their
political intrigues. Not long ago, this same Kofi Adams came out to deny
rumours that the Rawlingses were contemplating breaking away from the NDC to
form their own political party.
Even before that denial could
sink, happenings in the Rawlings camp suggested some clandestine moves to
destroy the NDC from within. Nana Konadu’s clamour over the NDC’s logo and her
warning to take it away if the internal problems of the party were not
expeditiously resolved or if she and her husband were not given the recognition
they deserved came to notice. She hinted of going to court over the logo, which
she had claimed as her brain-child only for others to emerge with that claim of
ownership.
Nothing has so far been done by
the party’s leaders over that claim and it has subsided as one of the problems undermining
the integrity of the NDC. As if that isn’t enough, Rawlings himself picked on
the very name of the party to suggest that it was his own coinage.
That claim over the NDC’s logo
and name appears to be nothing but an attempt by the Rawlingses to blackmail
their so-called opponents in the NDC who have virtually divested them of
control over the party. They might be seeking to use it as a trump-card to
twist arms and seek a resolution of the internal crisis in their favour. It has
turned out to be a wishful thinking.
Their bluff has been called off
and they must now look for another means to threaten the party. Much as the
role of the Rawlingses in the life of the NDC is acknowledged, there seems to
be no need for them to continue behaving as if without them the party can’t
function.
Probably, realizing the
cul-de-sac to which they have allowed their miscalculations to drive them, they
now have no other option but to wave another issue, seeking to use it as a
bargaining chip.
This hint that the Rawlingses
will come out with a party of their own won’t frighten anybody. At best, it
will rather make the separation complete to eliminate this constant
head-butting session and leave those who know how to rebuild the party a free
hand to do so.
Here are some implications of
their action. It will definitely shake the NDC to its foundation and take away
a good portion of those following the Rawlingses, which means that the quantum
of votes for the party will not be the same as one might expect in the absence
of this factionalism. But there is another side to the issue. The voter
population has increased astronomically.
Considering the waning influence
of the Rawlingses (based on their own self-destructive agenda) and the fact
that most of those now at the voting age were not old enough during the era of
the Rawlingses to appreciate their worth will care less about whatever the
Rawlingses represent. They are not likely to be swayed by the herd mentality
that seems to be influencing those still rooting for the Rawlingses.
Knowing very well that the Rawlingses are
mostly driven by personal quests and intolerance for dissenting views and
strategies for governance, these new voters will be cautious enough not to
allow themselves to be baited into the Rawlings camp.
There may be some relief for the
part of the NDC that sees good things in what the incumbent government is doing
to achieve its “Better Ghana” agenda. It’s then a 50-50 affair. Hoping that
floating voters will fill the gap to be created by the departure of the
pro-Rawlings faction, the incumbent may not panic, after all.
It is nonsensical for Kofi Adams
and the Rawlingses to think that they can form a new party “with the intention of salvaging an existing
party.” Do they think that those in the NDC not supporting their machinations
will desert it in droves to follow them? Or that their new party will have more
attraction for Ghanaians than the NDC that they contributed to sustaining for
20 years now?
A more intriguing implication
concerns the Rawlingses themselves. Because it is now clear that their venom is
fed by nothing but acrid vainglory and the morbid desire to return to the
citadel of power (with Nana Konadu pushing herself to all lengths and her
husband uplifting her as a better candidate than the incumbent Atta Mills), any
party they form will be constrained at birth.
Certainly, the upshot is that the
Rawlingses will establish themselves as potentates whose word must be the
command of anybody wishing to be a functionary of the party. Dictatorial
tendencies have always been the main ingredient in the political life of the
Rawlingses. Because they haven’t been allowed to exert such dictatorial
influences on the NDC, they are aggrieved and will carry that streak along with
them into their new party.
Who in that party will dare
oppose them and still hope to survive? I will never want to identify with such
a political party. So should all others who see democracy in a better light
than what the Rawlingses may perceive it to be.
Any party formed by the
Rawlingses will have a long way to go in making any impact on the political
situation. The main point is that even if Nana Konadu contests the 2012
elections on the ticket of such a party, she can’t win. By 2016, she will
present herself again and lose disastrously.
Probably, by 2020, she will be
too old, broken down, and worn out to contest the elections. That’s when a new
face may emerge. But as the influence of the Rawlingses wane, so will be the
fate of their party too.
Eventually, it will become clear
that their decision to break away from the mainstream NDC to form such a party
will not become only childish, petulant, and wayward, but also counter-productive
and extremely foolish. Cutting off their
noses now to spite their face later will definitely turn them into ugly
caricatures a few years hence. Such political scarecrows have no place in contemporary
Ghanaian politics.
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