Investigations undertaken by The Statesman indicate that the opposition National Democratic Congress intends to conduct next year's crucial general elections on the negative campaign of 'corruption' and ‘economic hardships’ against the two-term government of the New Patriotic Party. The strategy, being put together by a special committee set up to work out the party’s campaign message, is based on a thinking within the NDC that their presidential candidate John Evans Atta Mills was never directly accused of corruption in all his four years as Vice President to Jerry John Rawlings between January 7, 1997 and January 7, 2001.
When The Statesman contacted Aseidu "General Mosquito” Nketia yesterday, the NDC General Secretary described it as a basic principle of political warfare to hit your opponent where it hurts most.
“You yourself know where the NPP’s difficulties are. Once you identify where your rival has a gaping wound, you continue to hit it hard.”
Also, in spite of significant economic achievements, including record low inflation rates and a stable currency under the NPP, the NDC believes increases in utility tariffs, fuel prices, high cost of accommodation etc, can be readily exploited to paint the NPP as "uncaring" to the "plight of the masses" whilst a "privileged few enjoy the booties of corruption."
Though, analysts say next year’s elections will be straight fight between the two 8-year records of the NDC and NPP, the NDC still believes Prof Mills "can do the Koroma" on any candidate that the NPP pulls up against their candidate after the NPP congress on December 22, 2007.
At the end of Ahmed Tejan Kabbah’s two terms in August, amid widespread frustration at corruption and unemployment, his hand-picked successor, Vice President Solomon Berewa lost to Ernest Bai Koroma of the All Peoples Congress. Like the NDC, the late Siaka Stevens’ APC, which itself ruled for two corruption-tainted decades before the war and was accused of mismanaging the economy was voted back to power this year on an anti-corruption platform, winning both the presidential and parliamentary contests.
Back home, linked to the NDC negative campaign message is an elaborate tactic of the main opposition party to get as many of its supporters and sympathizers as possible to register and vote in the December 2008 elections, while sowing seeds of dissatisfaction within the supporters of the incumbent government in the hope of engineering NPP voter apathy. He said politicians are not like medical doctors who seek to heal a wound, "once a politician identifies where his injury is he looks to minimize the wound." And, the duty of the opposing party is to continue aggravating that wound until it bleeds profusely. He, however, explained that "we’re yet to complete the manifesto so we haven’t completed the formulation of the campaign message."
He confirmed that "There’s a separate committee working on the campaign message." Even before the special committee finishes its work, flagbearer Prof Mills has already started attacking the NPP on corruption.
He stated last week that ever since NPP assumed power corruption has been on the ascendancy in the country. He accused President John Agyekum Kufuor of putting corrupt officials at the helm of affairs, who have succeeded in plundering national coffers to the detriment of the masses.
He has therefore appealled to Ghanaians to vote for him and his NDC party back to power to stop the "rot and also free the country from nepotism." Prof Mills was speaking to a group of people at Komenda, a fishing community in the Central Region as part of his door-to-door campaign last week Monday. He further alleged that President John Agyekum Kufuor was silent on the "massive corruption" going on in the sale of premix fuel because he was the same person who put the corrupt officials there and knew that was going on.
