�We Used Campaign Period for Drumming and Dancing�

A former Majority Leader in Parliament, Felix Owusu Adjapong, has attributed the defeat of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2008 elections, to what he describes as an unfavorable electoral process. �I have done my own research, it was an unfavourable electoral process that caused our defeat,� he said. Mr Adjapong, who is currently vying for the position of a National Chairman, told hundreds of party delegate in Takoradi, that he would not blame anybody, not even their main rivals, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), but the electoral process. According to him, signs of the party�s defeat were written on the wall when the Electoral Commission (EC) opened the electoral register to correct the anomalies. Apart from the above factor, Mr Adjapong also thinks the party spent campaign hours drumming and dancing. �We spent the chunk of our time during the campaign, drumming and dancing,� he underscored, and added that disunity also played a major role in the defeat. Adjapong said, having diagnosed the problem, he was ready to work hard to overcome them when elected as the National Chairman of the party. �As a National chairman, you unite, you don�t belong to factions ,� he stressed. Mr Adjapong, who contested for the position of flagbearer and lost to Nana Addo and others, advised against the tribal sentiments being expressed by party elements. He said, if the party should continue the path of entertaining such divisive tendencies, its front would continue to remain divided. He condemned the open endorsement of candidates by some of the party leaders based on tribal lines. According to him, the entrenched position of some of the party gurus, that it was about time a Ga took up the leadership position of the party, was unfortunate, and must not be encouraged. Another debilitating issue, which he identified as a threat to the unity of the party, had to do with the smear campaign that a vote for Mr Jake Obetsebi Lamptey, one of the leading members of the party vying for the national chairmanship position, was a vote for Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo as a flagbearer for 2012. He noted that it was the same dirty campaign the party adopted in the 2008 elections that led to its defeat. He warned leaders and followers of the party, never to repeat the same strategy in the 2012 election, which they were going to contest as an opposition party.