45 NDC MPs To Sabotage Prez Mahama

Even though the National Democratic Congress has set up a conflict resolution committee to iron-out differences arising out of last year’s nationwide parliamentary primaries ahead of the November 7 general elections, information reaching The aL-hAJJ indicate that some incumbent Members of Parliament of the governing party are indifferent to a John Dramani Mahama second term bid.

These Members of Parliament, The aL-hAJJ has gathered, include peeved MPs who claim the presidency sponsored candidates to unseat them in the November 21 parliamentary primaries of the NDC and other senior legislators some of who though, declined to seek reelection and thus did not participate in the primaries but nevertheless, say they have been marginalized by the presidency.

Sources close to the majority bench in parliament told The aL-hAJJ that the livid NDC MPs plan to ditch President John Mahama over the remaining few months in the House by “purposefully absenting themselves from sittings anytime the President or government needs approval from parliament for some of its major policies, especially loans and international agreements.”

“There is no doubt that NDC controls the House by virtue of our numbers but we don’t have absolute numbers over the NPP so if concrete steps are not taken to calm down these colleagues of ours, I can tell you that government business will suffer when we resume and that will affect the President and the party’s chances in the election,” a leading member on the majority side disclosed to this paper in a chat on condition of anonymity.

He added that “when you chat with some of them, they believe their defeat was prearranged at the presidency for which reason they must also revenge by sabotaging the President…there are others, even though they did not seek reelection, but they also say the presidency has marginalized them for far too long. In as much as I believe that is not the best way they should approach the issue, I think there is an urgent need for us to quickly quell some of these things,” the worried legislator added

In what appeared to be a dress rehearsal for the main action this year, almost half of NDC MPs, particularly those who lost during the primaries, did not show up in the House in the last days of sittings late last year when parliament was voting on a crucial motion by government to issue another one billion dollar Eurobond.

This gave the minority NPP numerical advantage to reject the Mahama government’s request to issue another Eurobond when the motion was put to vote, a development which dragged the last sitting into the night.

What is also said to be threatening the President’s chances in this year’s election despite his government’s impressive achievements is that the worried outgoing MPs are reported to have decided to adopt a “do it let’s see” attitude when official campaigning kicks off in order to frustrate the chances of the President and NDC retaining power.

Reports are that there are serious rifts among NDC supporters in constituencies where sitting MPs were defeated in the primaries and also in constituencies where favorites of the outgoing MPs could not win their primaries.

This is said to be threatening the NDC’s chances of retaining some of the seats it won in the 2016 election marginally.