Ex-President Rawlings? last week vituperative attacks on Dr Kwesi Botchwey have received condemnation from the founder?s own party followers who consider the attacks as nothing but a panic campaign for his preferred candidate, Prof John Evans Atta Mills.

Most respondents in a Chronicle survey in the Ashanti and Eastern regions, where Rawlings made the outbursts urged him to return into the political hibernation he had remained in until last week, as a father of the party.

As readers would recall, Rawlings met delegates to the national delegates? congress of the NDC on Tuesday, and Wednesday last week, at Asante Afidwase and Koforidua, to impute vote-buying to Dr Botchwey while portraying Prof Mills as the best president Ghana needs now.

Following, Sly Akakpovie, the Ashanti regional secretary of the party, remarked in an interview with the paper that for the ex-President to say people were using money to influence voters was ?shocking and disgraceful?. He added that Rawlings should know by now that democracy is expensive and that a lot of money and logistics went into his winning the 1992 and 1996 elections.

From Anyinam, the Afram Plains, New Abirem, Kwahu South and Birim South districts of the Eastern Region, The Ghanaian Chronicle gathered that the Rawlings attacks have been condemned in no uncertain terms by most NDC and government party functionaries.

One Mensah, who describes himself as an NDC die-hard, said what Rawlings did would cause more harm than good to Prof Mills? chances of winning the race, since many people have now been convinced that Mills cannot be on his own. In his view, Ghanaians including even NDC faithfuls, are fed up with the rule of the ex-President and prefer a completely new face who has something new to offer.

?The 2004 general elections will be very tough for us and the other opposition parties so he should not do anything to divide our front, and if he needs to be told the truth, Botchwey has huge support in the NDC,? Mensah?s words.

Christiana Yaa Nyarkoa of the 31st December Women?s Movement (DWM) pleaded with the ex-President to play a fatherly role to unite the party, instead of making pronouncements that tend to disintegrate it.

A Former cadre, Yaw Owusu, was the only person who dissented. He said, the founder of the party, Rawlings knows what is good for it and the nation as a whole and must be allowed to continue his rantings unchecked.

Typical of the NDC, most respondents were not prepared to give their name, particularly the would-be delegates. But speaking on anonymity, most said they had already made up their minds who is a better candidate and no amount of persecution could influence them.

At the other side of the political divide, the Ashanti regional chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), F.F. Anto, has asserted that Prof Mills is no match for President Kufuor and so, Rawlings may be wasting his time moving heaven and earth to make him the NDC flagbearer. ?The NPP does not foresee Mills beating Kufuor at election 2004.? Anto was refuting the NPP?s supposed campaign for Dr Botchwey-one of the claims made by Rawlings to smear the Mills challenger.

Meanwhile, Dr Botchwey, whose remarkable support base in Ashanti, Rawlings rushed to destroy has returned to the region. On Sunday, he started another tour of Ashanti to confer with delegates.