Accra, April 5, GNA - Dr Obed Yao Asamoah, Life Patron of the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP), on Saturday said the nation would witness surprises in the upcoming elections.

"The story of the race between the hare and the tortoise is about to be reflected in the leadership race for this year," Dr Asamoah said in a speech to ecstatic delegates at the first National Delegates' Congress of the DFP in Accra.

The congress was organised to elect the Party's presidential candidate for general election due in December this year, and also to confirm some 21 leaders who stood unopposed in national executive positions.

Alhaji Abdul-Rahman Issakah, a private businessman and Mr Emmanuel Ansah Entwi are contesting the presidential primaries. The DFP is the first political party in the history of the country to be electing a presidential candidate in an election year, an action pundits considered to be too late and therefore counter-productive. Dr Asamoah said even through the Party was entering this year's presidential race late, it was doing so with "the winning principles of tolerance, humility, honesty, respect for all and integrity, as well as assurances of national peace and stability, transparency in governance, development in freedom, commitment to youth employment, wealth creation and poverty eradication, efficient service delivery and free, compulsory universal education".

He reassured that a DFP administration would involve chiefs in local government and that its political goals would be guided by religious and moral values, stressing that it would intensify the fight against corruption through practical and publicized asset declaration. "We will strengthen the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice to become an independent prosecuting agency, make sure that the Serious Fraud Office is independent of the Ministry of Justice and requiring the sending of its reports to CHRAJ for action and also making the Auditor-General's report available to the SFO for action," he said. "We'll also reduce red tape in administration." Dr Asamoah said the 2008 elections were crucial for the country, adding that Ghanaians were at the crossroads, faced with the choice to either consolidate their democracy, or return it to the "violent changes of the constitutional order".

He urged the electorate to choose the path of democracy and reject those who threaten mayhem or whose history portrays intolerance. "We must shun those with imperial airs and culture of impunity. We must not entertain hypocrites who preach peace but are ready to profit from violence, hooliganism, gutter journalism, lies, abuse and vilification of opponents," he said.

He said the DFP abhorred conflicts, insults, character assassination, lies and abuse of power and that it was prepared to deliver on basic services such as water, power, cheap and abundant food, clothes, shelter, education and good healthcare, when given the mandate to government the country.

Dr Asamoah asked the electorate to vote for leaders with the capacity to be transparent, truthful and honest about the real needs of the people and responsible trustees of national wealth.

"We can do without the professional pretenders of power," he said. In a solidarity message, Mr Kweku Adams, Deputy National Youth Organiser of the National Democratic Congress from which the DFP broke away, invited the DFP to return to "their roots", saying the NDC stood for the same principles expounded by Dr. Asamoah.

Mr Adams noted that the DFP was the first political party to be electing its flagbearer in an election year, adding that in line with the tortoise and hare analogy made by Dr Asamoah earlier, it was only wise for the DFP to attach itself to NDC to give that strategic advantage over the hare, which was the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP). Mr Kosi Dede, Deputy General Secretary of the Convention People's Party urged the DFP to focus on alternative choices of governance they could offer the country instead of portraying themselves as "disgruntled fellow's party".

There were other solidarity messages from the People's National Party and Great Consolidated People's Party. There was no representation from the NPP.