Sanitising NDC Ahead Of Election 2020

For the NDC to be competitive in 2020, the NDC needs to sacrifice in the positive and literal meaning “to make sacred”, and sacrifice those NDC people who served during the Mahama Government and who by their actions or omissions have made NDC less sacred, as in the following categories

1. Those perceived, proven or likely to be proven to be corrupt

2. Those who presided over corrupt government institutions and instrumentalities

3. Those deemed to be ineffective and/or incompetent

The process of sacrifice I propose here is artificial attrition of the said categories of NDC persons through persuasion and dissociation, in that order if the former fails.

The Party elders in consultation with the NDC National/Functional executive council should undertake the task of sacrifice. I give three practical examples

Eg1. NDC parliamentarians found to have been on double salary (as MP and Minister) in the last parliament should be persuaded to relinquish their parliamentary leadership positions and, where practical, be persuaded not to stand for parliament on the party’s ticket at the next elections

Eg2. NDC politicians dragged to court or the Special prosecutor and proven guilty of corruption or malfeasance should be persuaded to refrain from NDC party activities

Eg3. NDC Party executives and leadership perceived to be the face of NDC defeat at the last elections should be persuaded, where practical, to refrain from offering themselves for re-election into those positions during internal primaries. In this task at least, the NDC has the benefit of the Botchway report

If the NDC does not self cleanse before the anti-corruption tsunami hits town, the NDC would have extreme difficulty carrying a credible message, and with credibility, into the election campaign.

Let us consider of the following:

#The NPP Government’s flagship and beachhead promises are in danger of satisfactory implementation by the end of the Government’s term, among them the free SHS, the constituency and district development plans, job creation and economic self-sufficiency aka beyond Aid

#International development partners would bail out the NPP Government but only if the Government tackles corruption sincerely, honestly and ruthlessly - International development partners having rightly identified corruption as the major impediment to economic development in Ghana, while further economic help deemed money down the drain while corruption remained unchecked.

#International development partners through their diplomatic missions in Ghana have meticulously apprised themselves of every minutiae of corruption during the Mahama Government, probably the most porous Government in Ghana’s post independence Government. And continue to monitor corruption in the current Government. They would provide intelligence on corruption they have gathered, and continue to gather, in Ghana and provide even the resources to help the Government fight past and current corruption. That, the US Ambassador has made clear.

#International development partners would spare no effort in the war on corruption in Ghana, in part because of the guilt in dissuading past Kuffour and Mills Governments from punishing corruption of preceding Governments, perceiving the priority then of keeping the peace in a fragile resumed democracy. That too, International development partners have admitted.

#The political party that would bear the brunt of the oncoming anti-corruption crusade is the NDC because it is the immediate past Government. Incidental as it may be, the quid pro quo of clamp down on corruption for development aid and the recent ratification of the military agreement with the US, which the NDC opposes, has launched foreign interests directly into partisan domestic Ghanaian politics and inextricably bound those interest to an NPP in power in the foreseeable future.

The NDC’s antidote would be to do its own house cleaning in order to be competitive at the next elections. The urgency requires that at least some of it be completed before NDC’s internal elections this year. It took the NPP two election cycles to undertake a similar task albeit based on loyalty to the leader

A year out of the last elections, I advised the NDC in vain of corruption among its ranks that would affect its chance of winning that election. See https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Can-NDC-lose-Election-2016-Issues-and-third-parties-396070

The NDC cannot afford to ignore my advice here because this time the consequence might not just be electoral defeat but implosion of the party that may well spill outside it.

*The author is a native of Ghana, resident in Melbourne Australia