NDC Moved Away From It's Foundation Principles

NDC was formed by great minds from diverse fields of knowledge and expertise with a precise conviction of building a strong democratic party unequal to any in the subregion.

Immediately after the 1992 victory, a pocket of intelligentsia who were not enthused with the new dynamism of bringing people from all walks of life to constitute a congress, set to work to either dilute or change the course of the new paradigm from gains made by the rank and file's popular participation.

These party intelligentsia knew very well, that the novel political dispensation would change, not only the political discourse but the frontiers and structure of political power away from the typical political middle class dominance or at best dilute the influence of same, hence they quickly started to hound and design schemes to alienate those they considered as threats to their survival.

To enable them to either reverse or prevent further consolidation of people's power, financial consideration was gradually introduced as a barrier for potential contenders who were considered non-conformist or non controllable.

This self-serving interest of these individuals and groups of intelligentsia triggered the first as well as subsequent breakaways from the party by progressives who tried to resist this trend they found contradictory to the founding principles of the party. The consequence is a party that has been hit by three separate breakaways, yet with no lessons learnt, judging from the party’s current state, after its two worst presidential election defeats!.

For varied reasons, leadership of the party including its two time defeated flag bearer, Council of Elders, National and Functional Executives have unfortunately continued to behave as if nothing of such serious consequence has happened to the party. The party seems to be under some kind of spell, preventing it to see the obvious.

The major or cardinal reason for the said breakaways suffered by the party is well documented, hence the surprising fact, that the phenomenon has not received the necessary attention and has kept repeating itself to the bewilderment and annoyance of the progressive forces within the Party, who have always been advocates of proper internal democracy in the NDC.

After the disastrous defeat of the NDC in the 2016 General Elections and the anger it generated within the base of the Party, a fact finding committee was setup led by Dr Kwesi Botchwey, which toured all the ten regions and a report was produced but which unfortunately was conveniently shelved by the lobbying and manipulation of persons the report had found to have woefully failed in their duties to the party, headed by the then flag bearer who was at the helm of affairs as Leader of the Party but had fatally sidelined the party in favour of badly organized counterproductive adhoc groups formed under his name, that operated in parallel to the party structure.

It is however not surprising, that many who were denied the opportunity of a proper post mortem and necessary corrective measures recommended based on the findings of the Kwesi Botchwey Committee, due to lack of information acquiesced or were appeased by cosmetic measures scratching the surface of the deep seated problems revealed by the Committee.

Suffice to say, that useful document still remains a mystery to the vast majority of NDC party executives and the generality of its members. Only recently has the Duffuor campaign messages awakened the party base and grassroots to the existence of the Committee's Report as well as its hushed contents and recommendations.

The precious resources expended in putting together the report have virtually gone to waste due to the hushed and manipulated response to the recommendations of the report, largely controlled by the very culprits, fingered by the report as the main architects of the NDC's worst electoral defeat in 2016.

By concealing the identities and recommendations of the Kwesi Botchwey Committee Report, these failed duty bearers within and outside the party leadership or hierarchy managed to skew the presidential primaries once again to the advantage of the very person, who led the charge as the NDC's leader into the monumental election defeat of 2016.

Amongst the manipulations to install a particular flag bearer, was the astronomically hiked up cost of nomination forms for the 2018 primaries to stifle any competition from the various candidates, who had emerged in an attempt to salvage the party’s fortunes from the 2016 debacle and failed frontline actors.

A social democratic party threw caution to the wind and imposed GHS 400,000.00 as filling fees which infuriated the presidential aspirants and led to their challenge of the basis for that astronomical increase in the filing fees and which led to its reduction to GHs 300.000.00.

Many of course saw the increases in the filing fees as a ploy to frustrate the aspiring presidential candidates from contesting the 2018 - 19 presidential primaries and to create an unfettered opportunity once again for their preferred candidate, the former President, John Mahama.

Not even the repeated defeat at the 2020 general elections could change the hearts of this group of persons to finally amend their destructive ways of compromising the collective NDC interest and directing in usual fashion to the same dead end.

The modus operandi and the virtual capture of the Party by this group of JM loyalists through the setting aside of the Kwesi Botchwey Report, has made it extremely difficult for ordinary NDC members to see former president John Mahama and his loyalists agenda as actually contrary to all the critical recommendations of the Kwesi Botchwey Committee Report, and what the NDC truly requires to set it once again on a winning path in any election in Ghana.

The NDC has twice become a victim of a group that has hijacked and turned its winning ways upside down since 2013 and placed it on a trajectory of defeats, just to cover up their divisive tendencies and satisfy the business interests of individuals.

It is surprising John Mahama and his loyalist are trumpeting surveys and predictions damning to the New Patriotic Party, and are against good advice from neutral institution like the Economic Intelligence Unit of UK, who have dispassionately and accurately predicted all Ghana's elections from 2008 till date calling wins and loses accurately for both NDC and NPP at different times.

What is the motivation of wasting human and financial resources in collating information, data and generating research reports, which findings and recommendations leadership is just not committed to implementing. Why?

After the 2020 general elections time and energy was expended to craft amendments to the NDC constitution and a draft constitution prepared for adoption to kickstart processes towards the 2024 general elections. This was sidestepped by leadership because some provision therein would be inimical to their manipulative schemes.

As if that was not enough, the 2020 Election Audit Report, prepared by dedicated NDC professionals including statisticians, chartered accountants, auditors and submitted to the immediate past flag bearer and his campaign team, is yet to receive any mention by him anywhere, let alone act on its findings. Just as the Kwesi Botchwey Committee Report, it has been buried in cover up schemes.

Reflecting on the conduct and attitudes of almost all the leaders of the NDC, it appears the National Democratic Congress is not yet mature as a fully-fledged political party.

Which mature political organization would look on unconcerned and allow its leadership to stampede and side step processes at will without any reprimand.

The foundation principles of probity accountability and social justice have been jettisoned into the garbage bin, and monecracy is the new criteria and qualification for recognition as a member of the party. The NDC has lost its character and has metamorphosed into a class organization.

Anyone who dares question the status quo is intimidated and labelled anti JM. The former party Chairman Ofosu Ampofo was himself subjected to that treatment during the recent chairmanships race and then and only then was he forced to confess how the reputation of members who were opponents of an establishment candidate were destroyed.

The architects of the new order are overwhelmed by the attitudes of their surrogates whom they thought all along are at their beck and call are beginning to realize their elusive powers is fading fast.

The machine of oppression and manipulation is gradually crumbling Chairman Ofosu Ampofo was the block that fell off which created a gaping hole and toppling of the minority leadership widen the cracks that gave fodder to the sizable Members of Parliament to ignored the directives of the party.

The realities is out there and everyone is watching with keen interest how leadership would manage in caging the bolted horses.

Most Cadres were not as dishonest and disloyal like these new found disciples who have no knowledge of the founding vision and principles of the NDC. They were made to understand that Cadres are averse to wealth hence the precarious condition of most of them. Therefore the new cohorts of party members are not prepared to sacrifice, they need their share of the booties now.

It's strange to continue doing the same things and expecting different results. Some Members of Parliament and Chairmen are flaunting the 2023 guidelines on presidential primaries with impunity and expecting cohesion at end of the primaries....

TIME WILL TELL.
Mike kalley
Sociopolitical Analyst.