Search This Blog

Monday, August 9, 2010

It’s Nana With 78%


Posted: Daily guide |Monday, 09 August 2010

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo last Saturday shrugged off the challenge from four other contestants in the flagbearership race of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to record a landslide victory.

Nana Addo obtained 83,517 out of 106,590 valid votes cast, representing about 78.35 percent.

His main challenger, John Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen polled 21,226 votes, representing about 19.91 percent, with Isaac Osei, the only parliamentarian in the race, placing a distant third with 1,194 votes representing about 1.12 percent.

Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, the heart surgeon who dropped his stethoscope for politics, picked 428 votes, representing 0.40 percent; and John Kwame Kodua, a Kumasi-based lawyer and evangelist, obtained a paltry 225 votes representing 0.21 percent.

Four hundred and twenty six ballots were rejected as announced by Albert Kofi Arhin, Director of Elections at the Electoral Commission (EC).

Nana Akufo-Addo was subsequently declared winner amidst wild jubilation by party supporters who had thronged the Efua Sutherland Children’s Park.

In all, 112,716 delegates made up of representatives from the 228 constituencies, former President and former Vice President, former presidential candidates and their running mates, MPs, overseas branches, and patrons voted in the polls, described as a novelty in the annals of African politics.

The euphoria at the Children’s Park where scores of supporters of the NPP and leading members of the party had gathered to listen to the declaration of the results, was one that spoke volumes about a party with a sense of unity.

After going through what proved to be a successful congress, the party promised to give the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) a run for their money in the 2012 general elections.

If there is any message that resonated among the rank and file of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) at the declaration of the final results, it was that of a party poised for unity and victory come 2012.

This was exactly what was on the lips of each and everyone who mattered on the evening of Saturday August 7, 2010.

Speaker after speaker including former President John Agyekum Kufuor and other contestants did not just stress the need for unity among the rank and file of the party, but also pledged their unflinching support and commitment in whatever way they could to help Nana Addo and the party return to power in January 2013.

Former President Kufuor was cork-sure that come what may, the NPP will wrest power and assume the reins of governance from the NDC in the next elections.

Addressing an enthusiastic crowd at the Efua Sutherland Park in Accra, preceding the declaration of the results by the EC, Mr. Kufuor said the NPP was prepared to go to battle in 2012.

“By today’s decision, the party is telling the country and the world that it is strongly united, it is strongly focused and the single focus is that in 2012, it is going to redeem Ghana”, he said, amidst rapturous applause and cheers from the crowd.

For this reason, the former president is convinced “the party is coming back to power in 2012.”

He therefore asked the rank and file of the party to bury their differences for the battle ahead since the competition for the standing bearer was over, stressing, “We are all holding together like one solid strong man; behind the flag bearer we have chosen today, Nana Akufo-Addo.

“I assure you if and when we bury the pettiness of the competition that we engaged in, there is no way Ghana will not give power to the NPP in 2012”, he said, since according to him, Ghana will be the proudest nation in Africa if the NPP should come back.

This, he said, is strongly evidenced in the good work that his administration bequeathed to the people of Ghana.

Mr. Kufuor told the ecstatic crow: “I assure you that the whole world and not only Africa is asking why the NPP could leave power the way it left in 2008. The world is expecting the NPP to come back.”

Since the NPP stepped down, the former President said, the economy of Ghana had been tumbling whilst the rule of law had been relegated by the Mills administration, stressing, “The atmosphere of freedom and rule of law is now under threat.”

In their days in opposition, Mr. Kufuor said, the NDC used to talk about corruption in his administration but then today, it had virtually become incarnate since it was glorified in the Mills administration.

That, he said, was evident in the fact that there was corruption everywhere, indicating that it was only the NPP that could restore the country back to normalcy and give meaning to transparency and accountability.

The former President said “So we must not fail Ghana and we must assure Africa that we are poised to lead it into the mainstream of globalization and we have got the flag bearer to take us there.”

Each of the contestants including Alan Kyerematen, Professor Frimpong-Boateng and Isaac Osei did not only concede defeat graciously to Nana Addo, but also pledged their unflinching support to him and promised to put everything including their resources at his disposal to ensure the total annihilation of the NDC in 2012.

They therefore urged their respective supporters and members of their campaign teams to bury their differences and forge ahead since the competition was over.