Atta Mills, Most Marketable Prez Candidate In NDC

Why Obed was booted out as NDC chair
Mr. Mahama Ayariga, the Spokesperson for Professor John Evans Atta Mills, the NDC presidential hopeful, has asked delegates and supporters of the party to take advantage of his boss' experience, as the ideal presidential candidate in the country at the moment.

He also urged them to concentrate on enhancing the effectiveness of the party machinery for victory in 2008. “NDC has strategic advantage of presenting Professor Mills as its Presidential candidate. This is because, he is the most marketable presidential candidate today in this country when President Kufuor leaves the seat”, he said.
Mr Ayariga, who is also the NDC Member of Parliament for Bawku Central, stated in an interview with the ADM yesterday that, even though, Prof. Mills stands tall amongst the candidates racing for the presidency, without effective party machinery on the ground, NDC will see another defeat in 2008. “I think that is the challenge that should confront the NDC now and not the question of who should be the flagbearer of the NDC. It is pretty obvious the best choice is Prof Mills”, he said. On why Prof Atta Mills should be given the nod as the preferred choice, he said: “In 2000, the NPP was facing the same dilemma the NDC is facing today, the question then was what happened to the then candidate Kufuor who had contested the previous elections against the NDC candidate and lost? …but NPP exploited that strategic advantage, NDC had to change a candidate and brought in a new person, but the NPP has the advantage of using a candidate who already had 38% of the voters support, so all that he needed was 12% of votes to add to his 38 plus one”.
He said “by the Electoral Commission's record in 2004, Prof Mills had obtained 45% of votes, now in 2008, NPP must change a candidate, and so the NDC has a candidate who had 45% of the votes and 5% of the votes can easily be won…”
Mr Ayariga said comparing the votes polled by Prof. Mills in 2004 and that of President Kufour in 1996, “Mills has done far better than Kufuor”. With Prof. Mills as the NDC flagbearer, Mr. Ayariga was absolutely confident the NDC would win the 2008 elections, and said the record of the NPP is now there for Ghanaians to access. “NPP came to power because Ghanaians just wanted a change, so that they have a taste of an alternative government, and you can see clearly that they have had that taste and it is a very bad taste. They would correct the decision they made in 2000 by returning the NDC to power.”
He said for now, the party is reorganizing its machinery, especially, its structures on the ground, at the wards, constituency, regional and the national levels to prepare itself for the 2008 elections. He emphasized that: “The presidential candidate can win the election, but you need the party structures to defend that victory. If you don't have vibrant and active party structures to defend that victory, then you are only wasting your time”. Mr Ayariga noted that during the tour by Prof. Mills, it was realized that most of the party delegates are bent on having Prof. Mills as their flagbearer. On the result from the tour, he said the delegates also revealed that during the party's Congress in Kuforidua, the then party chairman, Dr. Obed Asamoah was not given another mandate because of his secret agenda against Prof. Mills, the preferred presidential aspirant. “I travelled with Prof. Mills and it is clear that the delegates have made up their minds that it would be Prof. Mills. They [delegates] were told that Obed's agenda is to change the NDC flagbearer if he is retained as the chairman for the party, but because the delegates did not want another flagbearer because of their confidence in Prof. Mills.
They did rather change the chairman of the party, so that he never changed the flagbearer of the party.” He said when a party has a flagbearer campaigning for the presidential election and it has a chairman who is not equally committed to victory at the poll, then there would be a problem. “They noticed that in 2004 that is why they changed the chairman of the party”, he asserted.