My dear Nana Addo,
I perfectly understand the kind of political arithmetic
that inform your current tactics and stratagems. Whilst an early congress
was sought to deprive the other contestants the time for gaining ground
before the primaries, from all indications, this has not been enough to
ensure a clear 50+1 win for you. A run-off is exactly the kind of situation
you hate to see, and yet that is what is starring at you in the face. The
run-off is simply put, an Allan Cash veto to the hasty congress and to buy
the time he needs to give you the necessary punches once and for all. Thus
your electoral engineers have been very busy, with a team on board to
scrutinise the electoral list, voter by voter, in order not to verify the
authenticity but to disqualify all known and incorrigible supporters of
Alan Cash twenty four hour before the congress!
It is only fair play that can create the healing conditions of sincere
concessions of defeat, reconciliation, mutual trust, respect, friendship and
solidarity, the basic ingredients of party unity. No doubt the Akufo Addo
camp have been busy throwing dust into our eyes that all is well within the
great elephant family, but reading between the lines, the troubles keep
piling up and the carefully sealed secrets and dirty linens are once, more
bound to burst through the seams in media explosions after explosion, as the
party implodes under the weight of its own voluptuous contradictions. The
like to gravitate towards money. And once Alan Cash begins to pay more, the
delegates would begin to be very confused. Any additional amount of money
from Alan after initially "confusing" them become very "convincing".
As for the NPP delegates, they seem not in any mood to exchange their status
as delegates even for a cocoa plantation. It involves too much work, and
even though it is seasonal so are the elections. All you need to do is to
"harvest" your "empowerment" and then vote "wisely"! You have no cocoa beans
to dry. No pods to break. Cool money. Sometimes they come with rice and
cooking oil, party T shirts, a lot of free drinks, girls, and occasional
fighting. Like dogs, the elephant is a very territorial mammal. It pays to
put people in their place in this unwieldy family otherwise your own
position would be up in the air in no time at all! The property owning
democracy cannot be built on hungry stomachs, and foreign multinationals in
whose interest the party seeks to promote are there to put their wallets
where their mouths are. The money is there in this party. If you don't take
your share, someone is always willing to short-change you with unrestrained
pleasure! It seems the delegates are aware of this and owing to the seasonal
nature of their new profession, they are going to squeeze the hell out of
both of them should there be a run-off.
Thus a run-off is definitely what most professional delegates want. They
have their own arithmetic. And on this point, the desires of the individual
aspirants for a one-touch sound very naive in their ears. They know they are
going to eat again during the campaign, but the professional eats
step-by-step. Why hurry when a run-off even pays desperately more money than
a simple primaries campaign? This Akufo Addo understands and has been
foresighted enough to do something about the appetites of these greedy
bastards. The election is going to be rigged. There shall be no run-off. In
any case, he is not going to commit a single pesewa above what he is
officially supposed to pay to the party until he is elected a flag-bearer.
The reason is simple: the money is not there yet. He needs to secure the
post before he can formally open the conduit from his neo-colonialist
owners. The NPP is broke. The chairman had to take a bank loan with his
house as a guarantee in order to get the money to organize tis congress. The
headquarters is facing threat of a public auction due to court order over
default in very outstanding debts.
A run-off is going to be a financial nightmare as each candidate would
prefer to directly "empower" the delegates than to foot the very bill of the
second congress. Ghana is going to be auctioned on a very competitive tender
between the two top dogs of the NPP. It is clear the winner is going to be
the one who pays the most. There are very extremely deep pockets behind Alan
Cash. I do not think that Kufour is just reading the news about what is
going on as a passive spectator. and that already means a lot, unless Kufour
is telling me he has no contacts and imperialist fat cows to milk of his
own! It is also extremely bad for the healing process after the vote, since
the contradictions sharpen and battle lines get their fresh drawings!
But I would prefer a free, fair albeit vigorous and keenly contested
run-off, to a fraudulent one-touch victory on Saturday, August 7, 2010. It
is by far easier to get people back on track on the democracy train when
they feel to be part of the system rather than cheated by it. This is why it
is not wise to cheat. As you, Akufo Addo yourself admitted recently, without
unity there can be no victory. I want to add that without cheating, there
can be unity. If you cheat you are going to lose the main race. so the
choice is yours. Win honestly and try to go to the castle, or cheat them all
and come back home alone!
Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!!
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