Wednesday,
October 15, 2014
I want to wonder aloud: Why should
ex-President Kufuor swerve both Kyerematen and Akufo-Addo?
As has been reported, “Former
President John Agyekum Kufuor has revealed that he will not vote for any of the
candidates contesting the flagbearership race in the national delegates
congress of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) on Sunday. Kufuor, who was president
from 2001 to 2008, refrained from voting in the party’s super delegates
congress in August, stressing the need to preserve his neutrality.
Speaking to Citi News, the
spokesman for the former President, Frank Agyekum, said Mr. Kufuor believes the
best thing for him to do at this point in time in the NPP’s scheme of things is
not to cast his vote, but rather stay behind and give his support to whoever
wins.” (See: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=330326)
Folks, the NPP camp has been torn
apart over the years, apparently because of factionalism pitted around Alan
Kyerematen and Akufo-Addo. Rumours have been peddled that former President
Kufuor favours Kyerematen and not Akufo-Addo. Such rumours have been dispelled
by Kufuor and his spokespersons but have refused to die down and out. They
still circulate that Kufuor isn't an Akufo-Addo admirer.
Akufo-Addo himself has gone to
the length of making utterances to suggest that he and Kufuor have been on very
good terms and that Kufuor supported in in his two ill-fated previous bids to
become Ghana's President.
Caught in the centre of this
jostling, ex-President Kufuor has taken the unusual path of
"neutrality", which translates into his abstaining from participating
in the elections to choose the NPP's Presidential Candidate for Election 2016.
He didn't vote in the super-delegates conference to prune down the candidates
to 5.
Now, he has chosen not to vote
again at the October 18 congress to elect the flagbearer, apparently in pursuit
of his agenda to remain neutral. Is this decision to abstain the wisest thing
for Kufuor to do? NOOOOOOOOOO!! Is Kufuor politically neutral only at this
point in the internal politics of the NPP, internal politics that has been
poisoned by Akufo-Addo and his followers to the extent as to brand any
dissenting party member as a traitor to be gored out of existence?
Is Kufuor being honest to himself
and those in the NPP looking up to him to bring some sanity to bear on
goings-on, granted that he is the only one to have uplifted the party from the
30 years’ political wilderness that it had been before the run-off elections in
2000 turned the tide?
Who says that he doesn't have his
preference? He does, and he knows it deep down his "Gentle Giant
hulk" that he has his sympathies and ardent support for one of the three
contestants. By choosing to abstain under the cloak of "neutrality",
he has rather betrayed his hidden interests.
After all, won't the elections be
"SECRET", meaning that no one will know the candidate for whom he
would have voted unless he himself blabs it out?
Folks, do you see how these NPP
people do politics to expose their underbellies? Kufuor is being hypocritical
here. He is rather thickening the cloud of suspicion against him. What he needs
to know is that by abstaining, he is giving an ambivalent impression about
himself and his future within the NPP.
Claiming to be doing so in
readiness to support whoever wins the bid is hollow. Couldn't he have done so
all the same if his preferred candidate lost after he had voted? A true
statesman won't take this short cut to run away from responsibility and the
truth. The NPP will not be the same after the October 18 congress, which is why
bigwigs like Kufuor must brace themselves up for the fallouts and not create any
smokescreen of neutrality to hide behind. Why is Kufuor so easily predictable?
I shall return…
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E-mail:
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