IDDI MUHAYU-DEEN’S FOLDER
In
the first part of this write-up, I established succinctly, with relevant facts
that, intra party wrangling or implosion has very little or no influence at all
on the Ghanaian voter in this fourth republic. I however used the NPP as a Case
Study, where it emerged that, even in the face of serious infighting, the party
performs creditably well at the polls and sometimes proceeds to win general
elections as in the case of 2000 and 2004 elections. In the buildup to these
elections, the party [NPP] was confronted with so many internal issues
resulting in several resignations by some of its leading members but the NPP
still went ahead to win.
Essentially
this meant that, the Ghanaian voter is increasingly becoming conscious of his standard
of living and thus, more concerned about the “bread and butter issues” rather
than the perceived or real infighting in political parties, which is common in
all the parties anyway. The electorates do not care about who resigns or gets
suspended in political parties and at what levels. They are concerned about
their economic conditions; they are concerned about matters of development;
they are concerned about good governance and the fight against corruption. These
are the germane issues that influence their votes for party A or party B. In
this part, the NDC is being used as a Case Study:
The History of NDC and Internal
Issues
The
NDC suspended their General Secretary in the person of Joziah Aryee in 2004 and
made his deputy at the time, Mr. Bid Ziden to act in his stead. Again, at the
2005 infamous national delegates congress of the party held in Koforidua, the
party subjected some of its National Executives including the National Chairman
(Obed Asamaoh), the then Acting General Secretary (Bid Ziden) and the National
Women’s Organizer (Mrs. Francis Essiam) to severe beatings. But for the timely intervention
of the police, these national executives of the NDC would have been lynched by
their own.
This
unfortunate development resulted in their resignation from the NDC and
subsequent to this, they formed a breakaway party, the Democratic Freedom Party
(DFP) to compete with the NDC and other political parties in the 2008 general
elections. In view of this, political pundits predicted that the NDC was going
to lose the elections to the governing NPP (which was very united and stable at
the time) in the 2008 polls. However, the NDC still went ahead to win the
elections despite these internal crisis in the party.
Less
I forget, in the run-up to the 1996 elections, the NDC Chairman in the Kwesi-Mintim
Constituency was bathed with acid by the party’s foot soldiers which led to his
unfortunate death because of internal crisis. Of course, this notwithstanding,
the NDC still won the 1996 elections. Except that it is noteworthy that, the
NDC, per this revelation, is clearly the political party that introduced ‘acid
politics’ in Ghana and in this fourth republic, with the acidification of their
Chairman in 1992. Quite significantly, he is called Adams.
Again,
the suspension of the NDC’s deputy general secretary, Mr. Kofi Adams in the
run-up to the 2012 general elections as well as the defection of the mother of
the NDC, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings from the party to form her own party,
National Democratic Party (NDP) did not prevent the NDC from winning the 2012
general elections.
Deductions
It
is obvious from the foregoing that, Ghanaians do not really consider the
internal wrangling of a party before voting for that party or otherwise but
their living conditions. The 2015 by-election in the Amenfi West Constituency,
which occurred at the heat of the NPP internal issues, further revealed that
the Ghanaian electorates indeed care less about these internal wrangling. This is
because the party [NPP] moved from the 38% it got in the 2012 elections in that
very constituency to 44%. Whereas the NDC that claims to be relatively stable
and focused as a party, rather saw a drastic reduction in their votes; from the
60.55% in 2012 to only 52%.
Again,
I have clearly established in the first part of this piece that the internal
issues of the NPP in the buildup to the 2000 general elections did not affect
the party’s electoral fortunes. As a matter of fact, the NPP was able to
overturn a difference of over 1.272 million votes (57.3% as against 39.9% in
favour of NDC) in 1996 to beat the NDC in the 2000 general elections with a
difference of over 881,000 votes in the run-off (56.7% as against 43.3% in
favour of NPP).
Once
this was possible (where a difference of over 1.272 million votes were
overturned in the 2000 general elections to give NPP a resounding victory),
then it shouldn’t be difficult at all for the same party [NPP] to overturn a
difference of less than 300,000 votes in the previous election [2012 elections]
to clinch yet another resounding victory in 2016 especially in the midst of the
unprecedented hardships visited on Ghanaians by President John Mahama and his
incompetent administration.
Conclusion
As
evidenced above, it is quite clear that even though internal wrangling in
political parties is a worrying phenomenon which ought to be brought to its
barest minimum, it is also a fact that such issues, no matter how intense they
are, have very little or no effect on the electoral fortunes of these political
parties. This is because, increasingly, the Ghanaian electorates are becoming
more and more discerning and thus, look far beyond internal disagreements in
political parties to actually consider the REAL ISSUES of governance as well as
their living conditions in casting their ballot.
Now,
more than ever, we are going to see a lot more of that in 2016 because
Ghanaians cannot forgive President John Mahama and his clueless NDC government
for collapsing every sector of the Ghanaian economy and plunging this country
into its worst economic crisis since independence. This, of course, is also associated
with legendary levels of corruption, unprecedented energy crisis, humongous
indebtedness, over taxation, acute exchange rate volatility, collapsed social
welfare system, joblessness and hopelessness. Certainly, this is too burdensome
for the ordinary Ghanaian.
It
would be highly preposterous and quite unconscionable for anyone especially the
NDCs to think that Ghanaians would, all of a sudden, forget all these difficulties
they’ve been through in the past 8 years and still vote for them on the basis
that the NPP had, at a point in time, gone through some internal challenges. How
incredulous! Well, they [the NDCs] can continue to tickle themselves and laugh
but in the final analysis, the ISSUES will once again, triumph over propaganda
come December 7 INSHA ALLAH.
Once
again, I am very confident that you would agree with me that, the imminent CHANGE
on December 7, is the SUREST WAY of bringing back dignity
to our governance regime and restoring our lost HOPE. Eight years of NDC and
John Mahama is more than enough. We are experiencing ‘hell’ on earth and need
urgent SALVATION. Surely, our country must work again and on December 7, you
and I have a role to play under the circumstances. We can’t afford to fail our
country and that is why we must VOTE for CHANGE.
Assalamu
alaikum
This
piece was compiled by a concerned Ghanaian in the service of OCCUPYING HEARTS
and MINDS for the love of God and country.
IDDI
MUHAYU-DEEN
A Crusader
for CHANGE
(0245335197)
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