[ 2011-04-09 ]

NPP cannot rely on civil war in NDC
As our front-page story reports, the ruling party
is in crisis. It is a leadership crisis caused by
a leadership paralysis. A crisis borne out of the
lack of leadership skills of the President who
happens to be the leader of the party.

A crisis, not least, brought on by the decision of
the President to play post-victory oblivion to the
history, driving spirit and realities of the
National Democratic Congress, the political
vehicle that carried him to the Castle.

NDC may be suffering from the makings of a civil
war but it would not guarantee victory to the NPP.
We are happy, through our discussions with the
campaign team of Nana Akufo-Addo that the NPP is
not depending on NDC crisis as the springboard to
victory. The NPP is doing what it needs to do to
win and will consider anything else as a welcome
bonus. Jake and his team are approaching election
2012 as if the NDC is a united front and would
present its strongest candidate against Nana
Addo.

The opposition party has no room for complacency
and we are glad to see this as its strategy.

Today, the National Executive Committee of the NDC
meets to decide on the date of the Congress. From
all indications, nominations are likely to be
opened by mid April, and the presidential primary
held in the second week of July. You may ask, why
the rush?

By this time last year, the NDC was looking at
December 2011 to ‘endorse’ President Mills to
carry on staggering his way to delivering on his
promised Better Ghana agenda.

But, things have changed. The NDC wants to settle
the flagbearership issue quickly and with a small
electoral college. All earlier attempts to
dissuade a challenge for the flagbearership have
failed. They failed because of two things that
often drive any political contest: ambition and
hope. Ambition because in Mr and Mrs Rawlings you
have a duo that is obsessed with power and are
still active enough, knowledgeable enough,
experienced enough, and relevant enough to their
party to entertain romantic thoughts of reclaiming
the presidency.

However, any such ambition needs fuel to go on.
That fuel is hope. And, that hope can only be
driven by two forces, one negative and the other
positive. The negative force is that the
Rawlingses believe that President Mills has done
more than enough to pose a personal leadership
threat and liability to the fortunes of the NDC in
any future election. The positive force is fed by
what the couple has been hearing from their own
party people, who have been encouraging them to
take back the party. Every indication is that a
significant portion of the NDC is disappointed by
the performance of Mills. That growing
dissatisfaction is finding refuge in the
formidable twin figure of the Rawlingses – the
foundation and spirit of the NDC.

It is a serious issue for President Mills and his
NDC. The Rawlings factor to galvanizing the
grassroots of the NDC has been crucial,
historically. Not even his meanest critic can
dismiss the massive impact that former President
Rawlings had in getting Mills elevated from the
hard-shoulders of political obscurity and elected
into the highest office of the land.

Rawlings has suffered for Mills, risking splits in
the party in the past for handpicking Mills and
feeling the huge weight of ungratefulness once
Mills swore the oath of office. Mills may no
longer be described as a Rawlings man but Rawlings
and those who know are convinced that not being a
lackey to Rawlings has not made Mills his own
man.

President Mills ought to have known before turning
fully against Rawlings that the founder of the
party has both his good and bad sides. The good
crowd pulling side helped Mills to win; once
victory was secured, Mills could not garner the
leadership skills to accommodate or deal with the
bad side of Rawlings. This failure underlines the
poor leadership skills of the NDC leader.

While we doubt whether President Mills has the
skills to stop the brewing NDC civil war, we are
happy to know that the NPP is not betting on NDC
misfortunes.

While it is true that the next election will be
more a referendum on the NDC than on the NPP, it
is pleasing to know that the focus of the NPP is
to present a more credible alternative to the NDC.
Thus, even if the NDC recovers from its growing
disunity, the NPP can still present a superior
programme to deliver a brighter future for Ghana.
So far, the evidence is clear that the NDC cannot
do the job. Can Nana Addo do it?

That is the question for the NPP to provide the
answer for the majority of Ghanaians.

Source - The New Statesman

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