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16.12.2008 Elections

PNC remembers 1981 Coup as nec meets today on run-off

16.12.2008 LISTEN
By The Statesman

With a little over two weeks to the 27th anniversary of the brutal overthrow of Hilla Limann's Third Republic government, the People"s National Convention, the party Dr Limann founded, goes into a crucial National Executive Council meeting today.

The party will decide which of the two competing presidential candidates to throw their weight behind, if any.

But, even before the meeting starts, PNC stalwarts, like the leader, national chairman, national organiser, and national youth organiser are, according to our checks, all bent against any alliance with the party founded by the man, Jerry John Rawlings, who overthrew the constitutional government of the PNC founder, and neglecting him to die a destitute man.

Indeed, the Gwollukuoro, the traditional leader of the late Dr Limann's hometown, Gwollu, has travelled the two-day journey down to Accra to ensure that the PNC does not easily forget which group of political operators were responsible for the party's current state.

Dr Limann, as leader of the Nkrumaist People's National Party, won the 1979 elections, which saw a hung Parliament, but he did not have enough to win one touch.

He, nevertheless, went on to win the run-off.
But, Flt Lt Rawlings, who somehow won the trust of the diplomat-cum-head-of-state Limann, in the middle of the 31st December night, only abused that by staging a coup that returned Ghana to military dictatorship for another eleven years.

When the ban on political parties was lifted in 1992, Mr Rawlings turned the PNDC into NDC to become a civilian head of state in the controversial 1992 presidential race.

 Dr Limann then formed the PNC, after negotiations to present a single Nkrumaist front fell through in June 1992.

Already, the NPP appears to have the momentum, with the Democratic Front Party yesterday pledging to support the NPP in the run-off. The CPP, the party which led the call for 'change' has also refused to throw its weight behind the NDC and its call for 'change.'

Speaking on Joy FM last Thursday, Dr Nduom, the CPP 2008 flagbearer said "every presidential candidate called for some form of change. Even Akufo-Addo campaigned on what he called 'transformational change.'

The CPP's change is a forward-looking change,' impliedly describing the NDC change as perhaps a 'sankofa change'. Two other presidential candidates, Ward Brew and K Amoafo Yeboah, have also expressed their support for Nana Akufo-Addo.

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