Amissah-Arthur Bad Choice: Victor Smith Fires

Victor Smith

The Eastern regional minister, Victor Emmanuel Smith, has  ruled out the chances  of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) for winning the 2012 general elections if the newly appointed vice presidential candidate, Paa Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, is maintained as the running mate to President John Mahama.

Mr Smith, Ghana's immediate past Ambassador to the Czech Republic, said Mr Amissah-Arthur, was a fine technocrat but he was not a marketable candidate for the 2012 NDC presidential as a running mate.

The regional minister said Mr Amissah-Arthur was nominated to help President Mahama to complete the unexpired term of the departed president, John Evans Atta Mills.

“I have known this man for quite a long time since his days as a deputy minister of finance in the 1990s and we were all walking in the corridors of the Castle. He does not exude that charisma and passion for a position of a running mate,” Mr Smith told journalists in Koforidua yesterday.

Mr Amissah-Arthur, until his nomination on Tuesday, was the Governor of the Bank of Ghana and former deputy Minister of Finance in the Rawlings administration.

His selection as vice president is causing mixed feelings in the party, with some party gurus questioning his credentials and what he can bring to the table.

According to Mr Smith, the party should not think that the death of President Atta Mills could fetch it the so-called sympathy votes, saying the electorate would be prepared to look at the individuals standing on the ticket and judge them on their past records or achievements.

“I don't think Mr Amissah-Arthur will bring any fortune to the NDC because he is not much known even to the rank and file of the NDC which he is a member of, let alone the general populace,” he noted.

The Eastern regional minister was speaking on the way forward for the party after the demise of President John Evans Atta Mills who was the party's presidential candidate for the 2012 general elections.

Mr Smith said as someone who loved the party so well, he could not sit down for the NDC to go ahead and make such a mistake and go into opposition.

“As a party, we are supposed to go to congress on September 1 and possibly endorse President John Mahama as our presidential candidate and by the end of the same month, the presidential candidate will be required to nominate his running mate for the December general elections and the party will have just two months to campaign so if the  new presidential candidate does not consider someone who is very much known and could appeal to the voting public, I am afraid the party will be treading on very dangerous grounds,” he noted.

According to him, President Mahama would be a perfect flagbearer for the party because of his charisma and the fact that he was the running mate to the then candidate Mills.

“Elections are about numbers and we need to get somebody who can bring that to complement our 2012 presidential and running mate ticket and not anyone else because we have a short time to go for the elections,” he said.

According to him, President Mills had to take a very long time to market himself before being elected as the president and therefore marketability counted so much in elections.

On the controversy surrounding the burial place for the late President Atta Mills, Mr Smith, a former spokesman for former President Jerry Rawlings, said to resolve all the controversy, the military cemetery at Osu could be the perfect resting place for the president since he was the commander-in-chief of the Ghana Armed Forces.

By Thomas Fosu Jnr