PNC MPs, REGIONAL CHAIRMEN BACK NANA

After nail biting 19-19 vote of NEC with Edward Mahama abstaining
By Charles Takyi-Boadu

Posted: The Chronicle. Wednesday, December 17, 2008
The National Executive of the People’s National Convention (PNC) yesterday held a meeting to decide which of the two leading parties to support, but it ended dramatically with a nail biter when the event ended in a tie with the national leader opting to abstain.
At the end of a long meeting to deliberate on whether to support the New Patriotic Party (NPP) or the National Democratic Congress (NDC),19 members of the national executive opted for the NPP and another 19 went for the NDC, with the leader of the PNC refusing to break the tie by abstaining from voting.
But in a follow up interview with Hon. Haruna Bayirga, MP for Sissala West, he noted that on their individual and collective convictions, all the incumbent and newly elected PNC Members of Parliament and virtually all the Regional Chairmen of the party opted to throw their weight behind the NPP and its Presidential Candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo.
He thus urged the party’s supporters and members to go out in their numbers to vote for the NPP and its Presidential Candidate come December 28 during the run-off to consolidate the gains made by the party.
Chronicle could not establish which of the pro-NPP members of the NEC voted for the accord with Nana Addo, but it is believed that the party’s National chairman, Alhaji Ramadan may have been among the pro NPP voters, since his daughter is married to the NPP candidate’s running mate, Alhaji Mahamadu Bawumia.
In a radio interview, some of the members of the pro-NPP faction said that they experienced terrible times under the PNDC when the regime overthrew the Government of the party’s founder, Dr. Hilla Limann, an event which was echoed by national chairman of the NPP, Mr. Peter Mac Manu.
Dr. Hilla Limann was virtually penniless in his estate house in his modest Teshie Nungua house, where he taught privately to subsidise his income, while his wife Fulera also traded in tie and die.
His friend, the late Chronicle columnist Professor Paul Ansah, who was a source of refuge in those trying times in the early and late 1980’s and early 1990’s, even though Paul refused to serve in his Government, but later remained a constant critic of the PNDC which overthrew his friend’s Government.
It is those sentiments that influenced Hon. Bayirga and the other MPs to vote for the NPP because they saw in Nana Addo, the exact opposite of the NDC on account of their track record in human rights violations.
A leading member of the Committee for Joint Action (CJA), Mr. Eghan, popularly known as Abaatan, also said on radio in Takoradi that his own wife suffered harassment under the PNDC, but diluted the compliment with a remark that NPP is not necessarily a haven of angels because they are guilty of human rights violations as well.
Abaatan noted on Kyzz FM yesterday that PNC’s endorsement of the NPP could impact the second round of voting because in politics, numbers was everything and nobody should discount the support of the PNC.