General News of Tuesday, 10 July 2007

Source: The Independent

NDC Is A Bastard Party -Boakye-Gyan

The Spokesman and head of government for the erstwhile Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), Osahene Major (Rtd) Boakye Djan, had said, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) as a political party has no parentage and no identity. Speaking to newsmen in an exclusive interview at his residence in Tema, he mocked the NDC saying, it is not a social democratic party as it is now describing itself and if you describe yourself as what you are not then you have no identity.

Osahene Boakye Djan pointed out that, looking at the NDC, the best way to describe them is that, they are ‘social liberals, and so describing themselves as social democrats mean they do not know who, they are.

That is not too surprising judging from the way they came into being, he explained then changed gears immediately to state that, the differences between former President JJ Rawlings and former (NDC) Attorney-General and now co-founder of the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP), Dr Obed Asamoah, has been set down to personality differences, but that is not all there is to it.

He said, the core issue of disagreement between the two men is one of personal ideology rather than personality differences. Dr Asamoah is at heart a liberal, while Mr Rawlings is a social liberal, and as long as each kept his ideology to himself they could work together, he explained.

When each began to assert his ideology the differences were out in the open and the canyon that opened up between them was inevitable, he added.

Osahene Boakye Djan also told The Independent that the NDC as a political party has no parentage.

He explained that, because it has no parentage, the NDC is blindly searching for something to hold on to. It thus claims as its tradition December 31, which, unfortunately, violated the collective rights of the people of the Republic of Ghana to choose their own leaders by overthrowing the constitutionally-elected government of Dr Hilla Limann in 1981.

Since that is unbecoming of a political party in a constitutional democracy as we currently have, they also claim their tradition is in June 4, 1979, but that cannot be, Osahene Boakye Djan scoffed.

How can people whose tradition is overthrowing the collective rights of the people to elect their leaders and blood-letting, as we saw in the PNDC era, claim to have roots in June 4, which has the noble character as the only coup against anti-constitution coup makers, he wondered.

As you can see therefore they have no parentage, “the NDC is a bastard party that gate-crashes other people’s parties (June 4),” he charged.