Former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, has put in place an elaborate plan to ensure that her husband, former President Jerry John Rawlings, does not participate in the National Democratic Congress’s (NDC) 2012 elections campaign, The Catalyst hast learnt. This plan, the paper can state, is working perfectly for her.
According to a source close to the former First Lady, she desperately wants the party to go back to opposition, the only way she hopes to take charge of the party and keep her presidential ambition alive for the 2016 elections on the party’s ticket.
The source said “Nana Konadu’s disappointing actions against the party, which shockingly enough, the former President is condoning, are all part of a well-planned agenda to ensure that President John Evans Atta Mills does not get a second term in office, as the President of this country. That is the only way she thinks she can take hold of the party and pursue her interest.”
Citing as a typical example the recent ownership claim over the NDC logo by the former First Lady and the threat by her to withhold it from use by the party if certain conditions are not met, the source said the former First Lady’s constant efforts to undermine the Mills-led NDC government and subject the party to public ridicule are stem from a carefully planned scheme.
Delegates of the NDC, at the Sunyani congress, endorsed President Mills, with a massive 96.9% of total valid votes cast, as the party’s leader and presidential candidate for the 2012 general elections, as against his sole contender, the former First Lady, who was handed a paltry 3.1%, the worst performance by a flagbearer contender in the history of the party.
Ironically, the same delegates overwhelmingly endorsed Mrs Rawlings at a previous congress in Tamale, as the fist vice chairperson of the party, which position she resigned, in accordance with the party’s constitution, in order to contest the President for the party’s topmost job.
Prior to the congress, the former First Lady campaigned against what she called a deviation from the NDC’s values and principles, accusing President Mills of abandoning the principles and values on which the party was built, namely: “respect for the founder, unity, egalitarianism, accountability and concern of the rank and file.”
In a recent letter to the party’s national chairman, Dr Kwabena Adjei, which was sent by her lawyers upon her instruction, Nana Konadu repeated her ‘principles and values’ of the NDC and indicated she would not hesitate to withhold the logo from the party’s use unless she is fully satisfied that these ‘principles and values’ are being adhered to by the collective leadership of the NDC to the letter, a move which has since attracted widespread condemnation and appears to have gravely affected the popularity of the former First Couple in the NDC.
Nana Konadu’s decisions are mostly not supported by her husband at the initial stages, and so she hardly discusses her intentions with him before taking such critical decisions, The Catalyst has learnt surprisingly. “Why do you think that mostly, the former President was out of the country when his wife did her things?” the source asked. The source told the paper that former President Rawlings for some strange reason comes to the public and toes the hard-line against the government exactly in agreement with his wife’s agenda.
The source named her decision to contest the president, her alleged intension to form a new political party called the Democratic People’s Party (NDP), her rumoured decision to contest the 2012 presidential election and her infamous act of registering the party logo in her name and threatening to block the party from its use, about six months to the 2012 elections, as some of her decisions indented to widen the rift between her husband and the party, which would eventually keep him away from the campaign towards the elections, adding that she has more surprises up her sleeves.
The source also said that “It is no coincidence that anytime the NDC has the advantage of the political debate in the media, the Rawlingses would drop a bomb against the government and that serves as huge relief for the NPP.”
The source mentioned the antagonistic May 15th speech of the former President and the logo threat issued to the party by the former First Lady as calculated to ease pressure on the NPP regarding the Kennedy Agyapong genocidal comments and Dr Bawumia’s ‘bawumianomics,’ adding, have you forgotten her description of President Mills’ Sunyani victory as a stolen verdict a few months ago on the day the NDC had its unprecedented mammoth rally in Accra?”.
The source acknowledged the huge stature of former President Rawlings in the NDC vis-à-vis electoral campaigns but said “The signs on the wall right now do not support any hope of getting the former President on board this time round. I am afraid his wife won’t allow it.”
The source was of the opinion that the party should take a firm decision now, and go into the elections without the Rawlings, describing it as “a gamble worth taking.”
“Having shown to the world that he is nobody’s “poodle,” as the NPP had said in the past, Ghanaians will retain President Mills in power on his own strength because he is performing,” the source however expressed optimism.
