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21.07.2014 Feature Article

If Only NDC Supporters Will Not Vote In These Elections

If Only NDC Supporters Will Not Vote In These Elections
21.07.2014 LISTEN

On a good Saturday morning you will usually find me engaged in two activities between the hours of eight and nine. Being behind me laptop preparing my notes and listening to the Weekend City Show online. I must say my interest in that show began during my national service days in Accra. Then it was Ato Kwamena Dadzie and Nii Aryee Tagoe who use to rock the airwaves and 'rob the nerves of those who cared'.

Even with the departure of the 'nerve-racking duo', the show still holds on to it taste and style and so I never hesitate to listen once I have my weekend right and my internet set.

Going back I decided to 'facebook' as an extra to my routine this Saturday. 'Paging down on my newsfeed', I saw this post that intrigued my senses. It was a simple question from someone I recently connected with. To be proud enough, he is also an Old Saint. I mean past student of St John's School, Sekondi, where I also had my Senior Secondary education.

The proud Old Saint asked in his post ''if elections were to be held on 7th December, this year, what percentage of the total valid votes cast do you believe John Dramani Mahama will get?''

Going through the responses, which some even suggest 1% and other implying the president will not even contest at all due to the 'embarrassment' the state suffers under his regime; I knew they were merely being Ghanaian and for that matter enthusiastic partisan youth.

But at another end I felt some truth and I realized they were being reasonable. After all who will want some confused, economic wrecking, poor performing government to be given another shot at elections? And with the poor state of the economy there is no doubt the president needed the 'red thumb card. Knowing well it's the only means of change in a democratic dispensation.

Two hours to finishing this piece I bought a bag of sachet water for ₵4, when it was selling for ₵2 three days before. Prices of fares have been increased. Now I have to pay ₵ 2.30 from my town to Takoradi instead of the ₵2 days ago. Utility prices have gone up. Corruption is rife with corrupt government officials walking scot-free and some others getting new appointments. Businessmen men who have defrauded the state are merely paying back the sums.

Prospective students are having their dream of a higher education dashed because they are finding it impossible to pay their almost ₵ 2000 admission fees when barely 9years ago all you needed to be in the University for the first time is ₵ 235. Last term fee for my niece was ₵ 635 when all I had to pay in 2002 was ₵2.3.

The last time I checked the country's public debt including both domestic and external debt has reached 58.4billion cedis. Now I am told a bag of cement is costing ₵40.

These are hard times and I could go non-stop.
All these should compel anyone to side with the responses, all of which went against the President for want of better Ghana.

But that is not Ghana. I know my Ghana. I know her electorates too.

And this is rather Ghana. Elections in Ghana are not issues based. It's largely based on loyalty and non-essentials. Sometimes it's about how ugly, handsome, educated, and tall or short a candidate is. Elections are not predictable in Ghana. Not even under harsh economic circumstances. For some people to predict Mahama's exit with such ease. Neither does a promising economy predict the stay of a party in power.

In 2010 when I contested in the district level elections, I realized issues were not enough to win elections. And that it is even more ''easy for a camel to go through the eyes of a needle'' than to win the vote of a party loyalist: absolute impossibility.

If today President Mahama is still hopeful of winning the 2016 elections despite his abysmal performance, then it's in the assurance he finds in the loyalty of his NDC foot soldiers and die-hard supporters and elites; whose greatest desire is not to see Ghana progress but rather the NDC's stay in power no matter the circumstances. Not because President Mahama has hopes of overturning situations to make life comfortable for Ghanaians.

The President knows Ghanaians have short memory and that they will soon forget their pains and put on their party colours even if elections were held today. He knows all NDC supporters will see the good of this rotten economy and return him to power.

In 2008 when we all thought the economy has picked up and that all the country needed was continuity, partisan politics showed it 'ugly face again'. The consequences we all witnessed and after all the lamentations we failed to show them the exit in the 2012 elections. Not because we didn't feel the pains but because we were so loyal even to the failures of the NDC government. To the extent that even discerning voters sold their vote for 'penny'.

And so, to reply to the post does not come as easy as I saw in the responses. Unless perhaps we are assuming NDC supporters will not vote in such elections. Or more perhaps these supporters have grown beyond party devotion and have joined in singing the latest hit track on the Weekend City Show, ''these are the days of dumso''.

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