It may create an impression on the public but really, to what end if the real number of party enthusiasts remain unknown and the party keeps wallowing in the deceit of having a large support base when the situation is actually the opposite?; these are the exact sentiments of former Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini and hence his recommendation leadership of his party, NDC, desist from the practice of crowd-sourcing for party events including rallies and unity walks.

Mr. Fuseini who obviously does not want a repeat of a humiliating defeat for the party says allowing the real supporters of the party to show up for organized programs without any ‘concoction’ is the only way the party will know its real strength in terms of numbers and subsequently work to improve on increasing the numbers in areas necessary.

Mammoth crowds at rallies and unity walks is one thing that characterizes the NDC’s rallies and Unity Walks across the country. Large numbers of persons throng these programs to support the party as well as participate in the exercise. Over time, questions have been raised regarding the source of these numbers and whether or not they might have been bused from other regions to join particularly, unity walks in selected regions of the country.

Mr Fuseini told Starr FM’s Bola Ray on StarrChat that it would be important that supporters from a particular region be made to participate in the programs without any additions from any other regions in order to reveal the party’s membership base for that exact area.

“Crowd-sourcing doesn’t give us the real picture on the ground. Looking back, you ask yourself so what happened after Cape Coast, then what happened after Accra, where are all those who filled the stadia or stadium in Accra? So looking back it didn’t give us our real strength, so when we lost disastrously in Accra, that number we saw was not reflected.”



Background

It would be remembered that portions of the Dr Kwesi Botchwey’s report on events leading to the loss of the party in 2016 general election said in the run-up to the crucial elections, the NDC, with state resource at its disposal, formed many splinter groups to promote the second term bid of President John Mahama.

Groups likes ‘Girls Girls for Mahama,’ ‘Zongo Girls for Mahama,’ ‘Zongo for Mahama,’ ‘Youth for Mahama,’ ‘Celebrities for Mahama,’ and ‘Doves for Mahama’ were formed with massive resources from the Flagstaff House to prosecute the agenda, which failed woefully in the end as Ghanaians overwhelmingly rejected then candidate Mahama.



The committee further recommended that the party needed to reconnect with its social democratic philosophy and further pointed out that the NDC had a weak intellectual and research base and recommended that steps be taken to crowd the party with critical thinkers instead of funding crowds.