<<Print>>The New Patriotic Party(NPP) should as a matter of emergency start planning how to give all card bearing members of the party the right to vote during their primaries as well as constituency elections.
If this method is not introduced, a time will come when presidential, parliamentary primaries and constituency executive elections will be up for sale and only the highest bidder will get the nod of the delegates. At the end of the day we will end up having only the rich men and women in parliament while good candidates who could champion the cause of the good people of Ghana would be left in the woods.
In the beginning only ten constituency executive members were allowed to vote to elect a parliamentary and presidential candidate. So anytime there was a parliamentary primary, these ten constituency executive members would have a field day. They would collect money from all the aspirants and vote for only one of them. In the run-up to the 2008 general elections, some presidential aspirants paid as much as one thousand Ghana Cedis(GH¢1,000) to each constituency executive member. Can you imagine seventeen presidential candidates paying money to each constituency executive member? At the end of the day some of these constituency executive members were able to make a fortune; buying cars and putting up buildings.
The NPP lost the 2008 elections due to apathy on the part of the ordinary supporter of the NPP who did not take a pesewa from the aspirants. In 2008 when I woke up in the morning to go to my polling station to vote, I decided to pass by the house of my friend and invite him to follow me to the polling station so that we could cast our votes since both of us registered at the same polling station. He told me he was preparing to go to his farm before going to vote because according to him what mattered most was his farm. When he returned from his farm and headed to the polling station to cast his vote, he was told that voting had closed so he could not vote. When he returned to tell me why he could not vote, I became very angry and lambasted him, calling him an unpatriotic citizen. This was what he told me in reply to my chastisement: “Do you think I am a fool? When the constituency executive members were receiving monies from the aspirants did they know I even exist as a human being? Leave me alone, my brother”
The leadership of the NPP might have realized the apathy in the party which led to its defeat in 2008. So delegates conference was held at the Trade Fair Center in Accra to review the constitution of the party as far as those who will be eligible to vote are concerned. At that delegates conference, it was decided that the electoral college should be expanded to the polling station level. That is how come polling station executives can now vote to elect presidential candidate and constituency executive members.
At the Trade Fair Center, we were aware of a particular former presidential aspirant who travelled across the length and breadth of the country, trying to convince constituency executive members to fiercely resist any attempt to expand the Electoral College. The gentleman knew if the Electoral College was not expanded, he could pay more to the ten constituency members so that they would vote for him during the next primaries. His dream came to naught at the Trade Fair Center on that fateful day.
During the last parliamentary primaries it became abundantly clear that aspirants did not take a cue from what happened at the Trade Fair Center. Aspirants competed among each other in the dolling out of huge sums of monies and other goodies like cars, motorbikes, sewing machines, hair dryers, and even weedicides to delegates. What the leadership of the NPP at the top level do not know is that the ordinary member of the party who was not a delegate yet learnt how much was paid to the delegates would be highly peeved. The sad aspect of this canker is that the polling station agents who collected monies and voted for a candidate would relax after the primaries, awaiting another opportunity to grab more money.
In 1992, 1996 and 2000 when the going was tough and the tough kept moving, there was nothing like “moneycracy.” During those wish-to-be-forgotten hard days when soldiers were seen on rampage everywhere in this country, supporters of the NPP did put their noses on the grindstone to campaign for the party at their peril. In fact, some even paid the supreme price in their efforts to help the party come to power. In 1992, 1996 and 2000 we saw the state of the NPP and the endurance of the foot-soldiers who were working past exhaustion to make sure the party won power. Anyone who had the opportunity to read the Stolen Verdict, the book which chronicled the illegalities and brutalities which accompanied the 1992 general election will tell you that indeed, supporters of the NPP in those days did not have it easy at all. At Nkoranza in the Brong Ahafo Region some young men who supported the NPP were brutalized by soldiers to the extent that one of them has gone ‘gaga’ and was roaming the streets right now due to the beatings he received from the soldiers.
Even though Rawlings put off his military uniform to contest as a civilian presidential candidate, the soldiers were biased and put their weight behind their boss. What happened in 1992 was repeated in 1996. During all these years, supporters of the NPP did not campaign for money. In 2000, supporters of the NPP proved to the world that even though money can do many things, yet when it comes to a situation where people want change, money cannot divert a true course. Despite the bullying, military maltreatment, money sharing, threat of death and sheer show of ‘military power’ and idiotic bravado by drunken and drugged soldiers, supporters of the NPP soldiered on until the party came to power.
Today, patriotism in the NPP has been thrown to the dogs while monies are being flaunted about as if the world is about to come to an end. Because of the way some aspirants displayed wealth during the primaries, losers have threatened not to use their scarce resources to help the party. This, to me, will not augur well for the success of the party, come 2016.
There is the need for Nana Akufo Addo, the flagbearer of the NPP to call a meeting of all aspirants who lost at the primaries and impress upon them to come on board and put their shoulders to the wheel for the sake of the party. These losers must muster enough courage to bear the pain of defeat because we all know in some cases they would have won but money played a key role in their defeat. Becoming a parliamentarian is not the only position to occupy if the party comes to power. I know when the party comes to power by the grace of God, Nana will never hesitate to reward anyone who might have contributed his quota towards the success of the party.
I rest my case for now but permit me to cover the environment with my homegrown Havana Moduro cigar. Good morning, Dr. Addo Kufour!!!