How To Run A Political Party Into The Ground

The first objective of any political party worth its salt is to achieve political power.

This means it must have a PROGRAMME, usually embodied in its MANIFESTO, which is so attractive to the voters that they will vote for the party so that it can implement the brilliant ideas contained in the Manifesto.

In order to make the Manifesto as attractive to the electorate as possible, the draft version of it must be circulated widely amongst the party’s membership, and comments invited on the proposals. If this is done, the Manifesto, when adopted, can become an article of faith for the party's members.

A party without a Manifesto becomes, in effect, a hollow drum. Party officials, not worried about policy, become interested, instead in PERSONALITY-PEDDLING.

'I want so-and-so to be an MP and I shall fight for him, irrespective of his personal failings.'

Or 'So-and-so has the resources needed to run a successful election campaign, so we shall listen to him whether his ideas accord with the Party Manifesto or not.'

Now, of course, personality-peddling inevitably meets with resistance from other merchants if self-interest, and thus, the moment a party becomes embroiled in it - instead of discussing ideas and how to sell them to the electorate - it administers unto itself, the first potion of political suicide.

Even in countries with a much longer tradition of organising political parties than Ghana, the personality-versus-ideas conundrum can wreak havoc on the fortunes of parties. In the 2015 British election, the Labour Party suffered greatly because some members in the party’s own leadership went about actively undermining the elected leader, Mr Ed Miliband, even as the election campaign was going on. They had a legitimate wish to replace him, but they couldn’t wait. And it hurt the party greatly for  undermining demoralised and confused Miliband, and forced him to make tactical errors during the election campaign that he should not have made, except under such great pressure.

For instance, he stoutly declared again and again - under deliberate prodding by the Conservative-leaning British media - that he would not form a coalition government with the Scottish Nationalists, even if that was the only way he would be able to form a government. The Scots, who give the Scottish Nationalists their influence, took this badly, and they practically wiped out the Labour Party from Scotland, after years of solidly supporting it.

David Cameron of the Conservative Party was cleverer in meeting the challenges he faced in the election. He refused to allow the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) to drive him into extreme right-wing positions, especially over continued membership of the European Union and immigration.

The electorate appreciated the backbone he had shown in ignoring the opinion polls which accorded bloated support to UKIP. Sections of the UK media fawned on the 'suave' UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, but David Cameron was not fazed by that and easily waltzed back into Number 10 Downing Street, as a result.

Tactical errors which trap political leaders in the manner described above are sometimes called 'banana skins.' Inexperienced leaders drop banana skins as they tread along, unaware that the banana skins will come back to meet them on the same path in the dark! When this happens, they slip on them and their fall is ever so great.

Now, on the political journey, a fall cannot occur in private. There is always the hidden microphone or the unobserved camera (these days, usually incorporated into a mobile telephone).

The troubles which the NPP is undergoing are like banana skins that the party unwittingly dropped into its own path during the election of its executive officers in April 2014. Some officials of the party were elected, not particularly because they merited election, but in order to bring 'balance' into the top echelons of the party and thereby whittle down factionalism.

But 'balance' can only be obtained if the elements are malleable; that is to say, they would be subject to correction when they go wrong. You see, you cannot put a writhing serpent into balancing scales together with a placid guinea pig. Before you know it, the serpent is aggressively thrusting its fangs towards the Guinea pig — in line with its nature! And out of the scales goes the balance wished for.

Now if in seeking 'balance' you make a mistake and end up giving the electorate the impression that you are so divided that it would be a waste to give you their vote, you will have rendered yourself unelectable.

This happened to the Labour Party in England for a long time, when the left and right-wing sections of the party went at it with hammer and tongs for months on end, 'briefing' the media anonymously against one another.

The Conservatives too caught the disease when Margaret Thatcher became so ideologically fixated that she divided her own Cabinet into two, with one section contemptuously derided as the 'wets'.

But in Britain, at least the divisions occur on the basis of policy. Now, someone please enlighten me: pray what policies are the factions in the NPP fighting over?

The least said about that the better. Therefore, as NPP 'bigwigs' officials contemplate the enormous quantity of 'gloating ink' that they have donated to the NDC to 'spill' gratuitously over their party - on the Internet, and in the media, day after day after day - they should ask themselves: 'So, is that all there is to us? Factionalism? Egotism? Selfishness? Failure to accept personal responsibility?'

The electorate is watching, and see little else at the moment, I am afraid. But time can heal the most grievous political cataclysms.

If used wisely, that is.
By CAMERON DUODU 
www.cameronduodu.com