Kunbuor’s comments may undermine Botchwey Committee - Gyampo

Former Defence Minister Benjamin Kunbuor must “hasten slowly” in his comments and calls for an early congress else it will undermine the work of the committee set up by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to probe the party’s defeat in 2016, Prof Ransford Gyampo, a senior lecturer at the University of Ghana, has urged.

“You don’t set up a committee to work then turn around to have senior members of the party coming out with such calls; it sort of undermines the work of the Kwesi Botchwey Committee,” Prof Gyampo told Jonas Ofori-Yeboah on Class FM’s 12 Live on Thursday April 6.

Prof Gyampo was responding to remarks by the senior member of the NDC charging the leadership of party to organise an early congress to pick its flag bearer for the 2020 poll.

Mr Kunbuor’s call follows deep cracks within the party with many leading figures trading accusations and blaming one another for the NDC’s electoral defeat in 2016, arguing that an early resolution of internal issues will be key in ensuring victory for the party.

He was of the view that if the current constitutional arrangement were to be adhered to strictly, the time for electing a flag bearer will be too close to the 2020 general elections.

“…Given all the preparations that are involved, it will mean that by the time you are getting to elect your flag bearer, you will be in 2019,” he noted.

Speaking with Moro Awudu on Class91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show on Thursday, 6 April, Dr Kunbuor said: “A party that has suffered this level of defeat with so much internal acrimony and internal pain still in the mind, if we could not take eight years to galvanise that into an electoral victory, I don’t see how we can do that within one year or one-and-a-half years.

But Prof Gyampoh maintained that it would be more appropriate for Dr Kunbuor to wait for the findings of the Botchwey Committee because the things he is highlighting, “I’m sure the committee will capture in their report, so why do you want to duplicate efforts here?”

For him, Dr Kunbuor’s comments will rather “heighten tension and create unnecessary anxiety within the party and will not serve their interest”.

He said the approach to getting “empirical facts” to explain the factors that led to the NDC’s defeat was a good one, for which reason everyone should wait for the findings of the report.

He said party members should undergo “introspection to rethink some of the things that led to their defeat individually as they wait for the report of the committee”.