General News of Friday, 6 October 2006

Source: GNA

I've not betrayed Atta Mills- Spio-Garbrah

Cape Coast, Oct. 6, GNA-Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, a National Democratic Congress (NDC) Presidential aspirant on Friday, pointed out that even though he was on the campaign team of Professor Atta Mills, the NDC's flagbearer, during the 2000 elections, contesting him for the 2008 flabearership, does not mean he had betrayed Professor Atta Mills. According to him, that position was "nobody's property, but party's, adding that as a democratic party, people who qualify to contest were free to do so".

Dr Spio-Garbrah, who stated these when he met a cross -section of journalists in Cape Coast and also addressed delegates expected to attend the party's national congress, therefore urged them to give him the nod, since he was capable of leading the party to victory in the next elections.

The presidential aspirant noted that the NDC had a fair chance of winning that election if it repackaged its messages well to win the heart of the electorate.

He said the entire membership of the party was "frustrated" and needed a leader who is young, dynamic, vibrant and experienced to "redeem the party from its "suffering in opposition" and was optimistic that he would win the party's flagbearership at the congress. Earlier, the Member of Parliament for Mfantsiman East, Mr. George Kuntu Blankson, had advised the delegates not to sell their "birthrights for food", but to endeavour to vote for a candidate who could lead the party to victory.

He also urged them to close their ranks and eschew backbiting, bootlicking and other negative tendencies that could draw the party back.

Mr. Kuntu-Blankson said the NDC would take over the Osu Castle in 2008 but urged party supporters and sympathizers to work hard for it to become a reality.