Rawlings targets Mahama

From his insolent tagging of leading members of his party as “greedy bastards”, “old evil dwarfs” and the audacious description of his party’s young communicators as “babies with sharp teeth” to his metaphorical depiction of the late President Mills as “Atta mortuary man” and subsequently, his chest beating slogan “who born dog”; the founder of the NDC, Jerry Rawlings has certainly carved an enviable and predictable niche for himself when it comes to allegories that later become harbingers of doom.

Overall, the former President appears full of such courage of his own forerunner phrases that he ploughs on silently to launch into a bigger and explosive agenda, more so when his description of NDC kingpins as ‘greedy bastards’ which was initially thought to be one of his harsh criticisms of persons later became a canoe he paddle to hound the late President and his government until the latter passed on to glory.

Knowing the NDC founder very well for what he is made of, especially when it comes to using ambiguous phrases, Mr. Rawlings, who since the death of the late President ceased from making “boom” speeches, has regained his ‘mystical’ boom powers and has started passing some comments.

Without any change in tactics, the former Air Force pilot and leader of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council that later turned to the Provisional National Defence Council that toppled the Dr. Liman regime in that 1981 coup that led to the birth of the NDC in 1992, is at his best again.

Recently speaking at the funeral home of the highly venerated poet and former Chairman of Council of State under late President Mills, Professor Kofi Awonoor, the NDC founder, whiles eulogizing the fallen poetic hero who he included in his list of people he described as greedy bastards, metaphorically said some “latter day saints” in the current leadership set-up of his party are trying to decouple the NDC and PNDC.

Overly pregnant with venom and ready to explode at any time soon, ex-President Rawlings whiles delivering the keynote address at the annual Deza Festival of the people of Dzodze in the Volta Region over the weekend repeated his “latter day saint” comment but this time, in different wording.

He stated “Today some ‘modern day converts’ operate as if they own the copyright to the pain and sacrifice you the people had to endure. The political circumstances that we enjoy today and which many tout as having been initiated in the run up to the 1992 elections was initiated during the PNDC era when we encouraged the people to get involved in the political decision-making across the country.”

Though many would not see the weight in Mr. Rawlings’ repeated comments of “latter day saints” and “new convert” especially when the former president, as characteristic of him is yet to mention anybody by name, neither has he explained what he actually meant, but political analysts are beginning to explore whether it relates to the likes of President Mahama who is reputed among top notch of the NDC not connected to the PNDC and qualifies as a “new convert”.

Political pundits say the NDC founder per his recent comments is warming up ahead of an intended strong bashing of the Mahama administration; bearing in mind the tactics Mr. Rawlings deployed that gave rise to his lashing out at the late President Mills and subsequently supporting his wife in an attempt to dislodge the late President at the party’s congress in Sunyani.

It is highly expected that, with the trajectory Mr. Rawlings has taken to, he is up to replaying a part two of what he did to President John Mahama’s predecessor but this time, he is likely to enjoy the support of some leading NDC members currently peeved with the way the President is handling issues.

Short of words to hack his party leaders, the NDC founder strangely chose to recommend an electoral reform already being implemented by the leadership of the ruling party to expand the party’s Electoral College.

The NDC Founder noted that: “Our party, the NDC, needs some significant reforms to face the challenges of the dynamic global political climate. Our current internal structures need to be reviewed.??“I do not think the necessary reform required in order to clean up the image of the party are being treated with the urgency it required,” he bewailed, and warned that: “If we do not act in cleaning up the party, we will, as I warned before, face a challenge in 2016”.

The former President added “Others may have initiated that method, but we can do better and come up with a larger and more representative electoral college. We should have done that a long time ago. Those of our officers and executives with integrity must support this reform and should have nothing to fear. Let us not do anything to undermine the attempts to hand back the party to its people. To undermine it will be risking the life of the NDC. The NDC must get into the hands of its power base”.