Mills men declare intentions for 2012

Following moves by a section within the NDC to present a Nana Konadu candidature for 2012, others who were relishing a similar dream, albeit on the sidelines, are beginning to shed off the lethargy.

That is the kind of knee-jerk reaction that the Nana Konadu candidature has set in the ruling party. Vice President John Dramani Mahama and Agric Minister, Kwesi Ahwoi, who hitherto had shelved their presidential ambitions to pave way for another Mills term are preparing to stake a claim in the event of NDC’s failure to build a consensus on a Mills second term.

Although the protagonists themselves had been quiet on the issue, some of their trusted aides are beginning to set in motion, plans and other modes to test the popularity of their preferred candidates.

The latest move from the camps of the two gentlemen, Today gathered, is to guard against the possibility of being taken by events and possibly pave an unassailable way for a smooth sailing of a Nana Konadu candidature. But hitherto the arrangement was that in the event of a no-show appearance by Mills, the vice president would have stepped out of the Mills’ faction as its candidate with Kwesi Ahwoi as his running mate.

Yet the Ahwoi backers are said to be back-tracking on the move believing that their candidate has shown excellent disposition at the Ministry of Agriculture and therefore can stand on his own.

The Mahama-Ahwoi move, the paper discovered, is to curtail any possible takeover of the NDC by the Rawlings axis within the NDC. A Nana Konadu candidature is not only a threat to a possible Mills candidacy, but also attempts by the Rawlingses to gain hegemonic hold on the party.

Already the Rawlings faction enjoys a greater representation in the party’s national executive forum with possibly only national chairman, Dr Kwabena Adjei, and General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, not on the side of the Rawlingses. Even in the case of the party chairman, the general belief is that he is only being pretentious in his outlook because of his position as the leader of the NDC, but in actual fact, he is a Rawlings loyalist.

Even before the Nana Konadu bombshell, there had been intense agitation within the NDC on the need to side-step President Mills as the party’s consensus choice for the 2012 election.

The wave of agitations by the party’s foot soldiers and the manner the President had been wavering and acquiescing to their demands had contributed to the lack of faith in the President by many NDC chiefs and other party stakeholders. “The man has shown that he lacks the steelness of a president or a leader and any attempt to present him as our own for 2012 is likely to spell doom for the party”, a worried NDC official told the paper. Some ministers of state and district chief executives have been sacked based on foot soldier agitations that are primarily partisan in nature than any inherent substance. The docile attitude of the President on the picketing expression of the rank and file of the NDC has led to many NDC faithful becoming very apprehensive about the possibility of containing the confidence of the floating voters who made it possible for the NDC to win the second round of the 2008 election.

“Look we did not win the 2008 election on the first round. It took the support of those from the smaller parties and other floating voters for the NDC to win. Now with the agitations of the so-called foot soldiers, the Mills government is throwing away many people from the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) and other interventionist paradigms put in place by the Kufuor administration. Mind you not all these people are members of the NPP. There are others who are supporters of the smaller parties and floating voters; can we go to them again and ask of their support?, an ardent NDC supporter questioned. Many NDC faithful are said to be unhappy with the manner the President is governing and fear the NDC might lose out in the 2012 election. They believed the President’s appointments to some key ministerial positions were flawed.

They cited particularly the offering of key portfolio like the Ministry of Finance to a non-NDC member – Dr Kwabena Duffour – as a major low point in the President’s appointments and believed the stupor surrounding the country’s finances, is largely because the country has a misfit for the job.

And what irks most NDC stakeholders is President Mills’ unflinching support for Kwabena Duffour despite the persistent boardroom protestations to change the known CPP man as the comptroller of the national purse. From very flawless pieces of information gathered, a Mills candidature for NDC’s presidential nomination will not be a general consensus and indeed if Mills should put up his candidature, he would be doing that on what might be his own strength probably based on success chalked in his four-year tenure as the President of Ghana.

Often the general practice had been that sitting presidents wishing to stand for another term are often adopted by the ruling party without windows of opportunities to others who might nurture presidential ambitions.

Former Presidents Jerry John Rawlings and John Agyekum Kufuor all had the “rights” to go another haul without any challenge from other prospective candidates. So as Rawlings run from 1993 to 2000, Kufuor went two terms from 2001 to 2008. But as Today gathered, unless there is very serious introspection in the coming days and months, a consensus Mills candidature is not likely to be entertained by the NDC and will perhaps do so on his own accord.