The race for the election of NDC flagbearer to confront the NPP incumbent in the 2004 elections was at times unpredictable and at others a muted suggestions that, it was going to be the renaissance of the comeback keep.
It was built to be a reborn of Prof John Evans Atta Mills or more appropriately ‘Fiifi’ whose political fortunes and image bipped through a conspiracy of harmonious sabotage, hypocrisy and down right stabbing in the back by his own party men.
It is quite true that some people who were given an assignment to campaign for the party with logistics kept and pitched camp in the NPP’s political camp. But Fiifi the comeback kicked had to fight back to claim his own and he did it with a fashionable 1,116 votes as against 194 votes of his rival.
He did it with an infectious speech, smooth language and a better placed strategy by getting to the delegates direct and telling them what he could do. To most of the delegates who did not understand a word of Dr Kwesi Botchwey’s linguistic presentation, did not help matters at all.
In fact, most of the delegates that The Ghanaian Voice spoke to said that was his suicide point and decided that politics is not about speaking so many languages but delivering a good message of prosperity and solid glance for the future and Fiifi was the one who offered that hope.
Listen to him: “I have always be in the trenches with you. I took part in the deliberations to reorganise our party. I have helped back row the party and indeed this congress. This is a new day and I offer you something new.”
The delegates jumped unto their feet in an ecstatic mood and decided that this is the man to rescue the nation from the hopeless and fraudulent policies of the Kufuor administration. And their realisation turn into a massive endorsement for him.
Speaking to some NPP supporters, they confided that they were expecting Dr Kwesi Botchwey to win so that the party could wreck to make it a point to give Kufuor a free day in the 2004 elections.