Rawlings and Obed can kill NDC -- Asaga

The chicks have come home to roost. One by one and event after event, stalwarts of the opposition NDC have begun acknowledging that the party is at the crossroads. The cause? A deep rift that keeps widening by the day and which will stand in the way of attempts by the NDC to win any of the bye-elections.

The latest to join the awareness bandwagon is former deputy Minister of Finance and Member of Parliament for Nabdam Mr. Moses Asaga. To him specifically, the real problem is the apparent sour relationship between Founder Rawlings and chairman Obed Asamoah.

Lamenting the failure of their party to win any of the 5 seats contested in the recent by-elections, Mr. Asaga went beyond the “conspiracy theory” of incumbency as the sole reason why the party has failed to hold unto its own in the recent elections. “The failure of the party to win any of the by-elections could partly be blamed on the divided attention among the top hierarchy of the NDC.

Because of this we go into by-elections ill-prepared and half-hearted, we’re not able to assemble all our arsenals into one whole to defeat the NPP.” While acknowledging the possible abuse of incumbency, he also submitted that the NDC could only succeed in any future elections if the two kingpins, Jerry and Obed, reconsider their entrenched positions for the prosperity of the party.

Mr.Asaga traced the mistrust between the chairman and the founder to Mr. Rawlings perception that Dr Asamoah has not been forthright with the party’s finances while Dr. Asamoah on the other hand thinks the founder of the party did not treat him fairly when he embarked on his desire to pair with Prof. Mills for the 2000 elections. He regretted the apparent infantile but entrenched positions taken by the two gentlemen while they neglect their vital roles towards the survival of the party and asked who “they want to do their jobs for them.”

“It’s about time they both found solutions to this problem or opt out of the party for honest and committed loyal members to work towards the interest of the party”. According to him the issues that characterized the National Delegates Congress are still eating up party to the extent that even at the regional and district levels, “there is a split with one party supporting Dr. Asamoah and his defeated Kwesi Botchwey while the other supports President Rawlings and Prof. Mills”. This situation according to him generates confusion any time there is a by-election, because most of the supporters of Obed always say they are awaiting instructions from him before they do their work.

He said “even though both gentlemen may have good reasons why they don’t want to forgive each other, one expects that they come together to bury their hatchet for the betterment of our great party, and preservation of multi-party democracy in the country”. On the readiness of the party to rub shoulders with the leaders in the 2004 elections as espoused by the former president, an obviously uncomfortable Asaga contended that the only chance they have could be destroyed by the differences between he Rawlings and Dr. Asamoah.

Moses Asaga who has been suggested as one of the parliamentarians the ruling NPP is bent on poaching because of what they perceive to be his unusual silence on the economy while the cost of living soars, disclosed that last year, the African Development Bank indeed offered him a very lucrative appointment as Director of Infrastructure in Africa but he turned it down. “It came at a time the party was bemoaning the exit of Dr. Ibn Chambas and it would have been wrong for me to leave at such a crucial time”.

Moreover, he says he owes it a duty to his constituents and the country for that matter to stay behind and help build the economy by debating and offering solutions to certain hard economic policies that the Kufuor administration pursues which places Ghanaians in difficult situations. For now however, he insists there is no way he is going to betray the NDC by taking up any appointment with “its greatest enemy the New Patriotic Party