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.

CPP Stokes Fire In NDC

Posted: Daily Guide |Monday, 09 August 2010

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
Ivor Kobina Greenstreet
A statement by the Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP) has started a wild fire in the National Democratic Congress (NDC), threatening the very foundation of the ruling party.

In reaction to a statement by the NDC’s Propaganda Secretary, Richard Quashigah, which sought to liken the CPP’s National Youth Organiser, Kwabena Bomfeh to an NPP mole, CPP General Secretary, Ivor Kobina Greenstreet flayed the ruling party, stating that “if criticism is the yardstick by which NDC determines what a mole is, then the real mole the NDC should be concerned with is their own loose cannon; founder Jerry John Rawlings.”

Quashigah had accused Kabila of being a mole for the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), following the latter’s decision to take the STX Korean deal to court for interpretation.

But barely 24 hours after the CPP issued the statement to deflate the NDC Propaganda Secretary’s assertions, a splinter group within the NDC, the Youth for Leadership in Ghana (YFL) which does not only identify itself with the former President, but also feels beholden to him, issued a counter statement which questions the allegiance of President Mills to the NDC as a party.

A statement signed and issued by General Secretary of the group, SaCut Amenga-Etego, wondered why President Mills had devoted much of his 18 months in office to honour Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, instead of Rawlings, who formed and nurtured the NDC to its present stage where he (Mills) had got the opportunity to become its leader.

According to the YFL, “for the CPP to carefully craft a statement that attacks the personal integrity of the NDC founder while absolving the President and NDC leader Prof. Mills, exposes an extreme form of treachery that cannot be hidden from good Ghanaians.

“Our understanding of the CPP statement makes it clear to us that such NCP (National Convention Party) elements who formed the progressive alliance with Kow Nkensen Arkaah with President Rawlings for the 1992 general election are still embittered by the breakaway in 1996 that saw Prof. Mills running for Vice President with President Rawlings.

“The CPP could not even hide the agenda of the schemers as it clearly deviated from a debate about the STX Korea housing deal between the Propaganda Secretary of the NDC on one hand, and the CPP youth organizer on the other hand into a deliberate attack on the NDC founder while at the same time, absolving President Mills of blame in the same statement, thereby separating President Mills from the NDC and its founder.”

After studying the content of the statement from the CPP, the YFL said “we are convinced that such a statement could only be part of that grand scheme orchestrated by certain defunct National Convention Party (NCP) elements within both the CPP and the NDC to divide the NDC with the hope of taking over the power base of the NDC.”

For this reason, the YFL said people including the Ahwois, and the Totobi Kwakyes were collaborating with the likes of Kwesi Pratt and Ivor Greenstreet to tamper with the foundation of the NDC by scheming to denigrate and openly attack its founder.

“The YFL is wondering if it is the case that President Mills is actually encouraging these ‘alien elements’ to try to divide the NDC that put him in power” and “we are also still trying to come to terms with the reasons for CPP’s worry over embarrassments to President Mills while having no qualms in openly calling the NDC founder ‘a loose cannon’?”

The leadership of YFL asked: “Is it also the case that President Mills spending his first eighteen months in office engaging in various activities to honour the CPP founder Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is part of such grand machinations to sell out the NDC to these scheming and disgruntled NCP elements who obviously have become his close confidants?

“Why would the CPP be so mean as to dishonour the NDC founder Jerry Rawlings with such an open attack without direct provocation at a time when the NDC government under President Mills has committed so much national resource into the honour of the CPP founder?”

They therefore denounced what they described as a ‘carefully planned and projected agenda’ by Rawlings’ detractors, with a stern warning that “such intrigue will not divide the NDC for their benefit today or ever.”
The group also cautioned President Mills to be wary of these intrigues and their dire consequences for his presidency since they have vowed to “defend the Jerry Rawlings legacy- the legacy they want to either usurp or destroy - even if it will cost us an arm and a leg.”

All Set For NPP Race

Posted: Daily Guide |Thursday, 05 August 2010
www.dailyguideghana.com

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
Contrary to speculations that there are still lingering issues about the flagbearership race of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), party Chairman Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey says all is clear.

Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey has asked all who have doubts about the impending elections to disabuse their minds of any perception.

Addressing journalists ahead of the Saturday congress at a press conference at the party’s Asylum-Down headquarters yesterday, Jake said “the knotty issues have been resolved.”

He admitted that there were teething challenges they had to tackle with reference to the difficulty in building and verifying information from the constituencies which created some misunderstanding and suspicion among some contestants.

He stressed the belief that the NPP could go into Saturday’s contest “satisfied that we have made the grounds as fair and even as we humanly can.”

As has been the tradition of the party, the August 7 congress would be conducted by the Electoral Commission in all 230 constituencies, except Ablekuma North and Ablekuma South Constituencies where certain outstanding issues are yet to be resolved.

Officials of the Commission are expected to conduct the elections in all polling centres, collate and give the final tally of votes obtained by each candidate.

Almost 113,000 delegates are expected to vote in the congress, a number which is smaller than earlier figures put out.

This, according to the party chairman, is the result of the elimination of delegates who are unable to vote and also from the merging of positions that overlap within the Electoral College defined in Article 12(A) 6 of the NPP Constitution which provides for each delegate to vote only once.

Each constituency shall therefore represent a unit polling area and polling centre whilst the National Council of Elders, the National Council, past national officers and representatives of the party’s external branches would all vote at the national headquarters here in Accra.

Mr Obetsebi-Lamptey expressed appreciation to Alan Kyerematen and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who are both contesting in the race for contributing extra resources for the transportation of delegates from their homes to their polling centres, calling on all party members and sympathisers to pray and help make the congress a success.

Voting is however expected to begin at all polling centres at 8:00 am and close at 3:00 pm on the voting day, with counting following immediately.

Provisions have thus been made for the Electoral Commission to declare the results at the Efua Sutherland Children's Park near the National Theatre.

In the event of an outright win, the winning candidate will then be declared by the National Chairman of the party.

The party has completed security arrangements and is in discussions with the various security agencies to ensure that adequate protection is provided for the entire congress.

To demonstrate its commitment to transparency, the NPP has opened the congress to both local and international journalists who have an interest in covering the process to cover the event in any constituency and at the results declaration centre.

Saturday’s congress will be historic for at least one reason; for the first time in the political history of Ghana and Africa, party delegates in 230 constituencies across one country will hold separate contests to select a presidential candidate for a general election.

This, the party says, asserts its reputation as ground-breakers in Ghana's quest for true democracy.

In August 2009, the NPP made fundamental reforms in the way to select their leaders and candidates for national elections.

The reforms, according to the party chairman, were motivated by the NPP’s desire to give power to its grassroots members and to deepen internal democracy.

It has been used to elect its polling station officers, electoral area co-ordinators, constituency executives, regional executives and national executives.

Saturday’s election of the party’s Presidential candidate will give practical expression to the power the party granted its grassroots.