NPP SPECIAL CONGRESS: Alan and Co can end it all by this weekend!

With barely a week to the NPP Super Delegates Congress, flagbearer aspirant hopefuls of the party are feverishly crisscrossing the length and breadth of the country doing final rounds on their campaigns before the die is cast. Mind you, this die casting is not originally planned to select the party’s candidate towards the 2016 national elections, it is only to trim down the number of Presidential aspirants from the seven that have not only expressed interest but made commitments to fulfill the party’s requirements to within the not more than five candidates as stipulated by the NPP’s constitution.



Nonetheless, the candidates involved can still bring to an end the internal processes and by extension its associated acrimonies to determine the next flagbearer depending on the maturity of all the aspirants. Without looking far, it is obvious what the mood of the party is at the moment. The party is not in the mood for any long and drawn out contest when the whole world knows the outcome. We know very well that the flagbearership contest is the reason the party especially at the top is experiencing the sharp divisions and needless mistrust. We cannot continue with acts that will be breeding and deepening the deep seated mistrust.



Any objective collateral cost and benefit analysis of going through the two stages of selecting a flagbearer will show that ending it all at this initial stage will be more beneficial to the party. What can a party gain from an exercise which extension is more likely to sabotage its primary objective after it must have shred itself to pieces? As a party, we know what we want is power just as we know what can compromise our ability to capture that power. And so all these bickering, posturing, accusations and counter accusations, provocations, mischief, smearing, tongue lashing and vile propaganda from the various factions against the other through to the elected constituency, regional and national executives should not end at merely slashing DOWN THE NUMBERS FROM SEVEN TO WITHIN FIVE! But what if a candidate is able to rake in as much as 80% or even more of the special congress votes, what will that be saying about the choice of the delegates and the implication to the entire process?



At this stage of the contest, it will be sheer naivety on the part of anyone to assume the flagbearer aspirants are completely blind or deaf to happenings and whom the delegates have decided on to lead the party. They are certainly not, they know as much as we do. It should not matter what the original intentions of these contestants were for contesting to be flagbearer. And there will be no constitutional breach if all the contestants throw their support behind a candidate who succeeds in polling 80% or more of the votes.



Alan did it before in the 2007 congress and the congress subsequently acclaimed Akufo-Addo as the flagbearer. Part of political astuteness is reading the mood of the party and applying oneself accordingly. Surely, the emphatic win of whoever comes out top on Sunday 31st August should say a lot about the mood and preference of the party and not just a matter of which candidate placed first, second or third positions etc. And so I see no reason and indeed every reason why a candidate polling anything above the 80% margin should bring the contest and processes to an end.



Insisting on going through with the two stages irrespective of the overwhelming approval of one of the seven at the end of the day on August 31 will not only be wasting our time but resources that ought to be going to the party. Indeed, what else will they be seeking to prove? I dare say the party will not forgive such aspirants who refuse to shelve their individual and future aspirations for the collective good. Democracy cannot be reduced to ‘let’s vote by all means’ even when everything including an initial vote consistently points to a particular person/direction as the obvious. Unless of course the other candidates have reasons other than the party winning back power as their objective. And so their individual aspirations and objectives overrides that of the collective and they will not care even when it is obvious that the pursuit of such at this particular time hurts our collective interest.



The acrimonies we have seen associated with the campaigns towards the special congress will likely be exacerbated going towards the 18th October congress. Such campaigns hardly benefit the collective interest, so that if the single interest of the party which we all take for granted to be about dislodging the incompetent NDC and taking up the leadership of this country, then we must be considering the possibility of ending the deepening divisions before the sun goes down come 31st August, 2014. That a candidate can garner 80% and over in a contest amongst seven persons is a signal strong enough to tell us all who the party people want as its flagbearer.



What will be the motivation of the remaining six candidates if they have to share less than 20% percent of the valid votes cast at the special congress and still refuse to throw their support behind the candidate with the overwhelming approval but insist that the party must be subjected to another one and a half months of more acrimonies? The mood of the party is one; WE WANT POWER NOW! If these aspirants understand politics, they will be saving their individual future ambitions by conceding. Who will be interested in sponsoring a candidate that shares 20% votes with five others in an original contest of seven persons? Political suicide is what I will call such attempt.



Aside sparing the party from the possible acrimonies that threaten its quest for power, the party also saves lots of money if August 31 should end the contest with all candidates throwing their support behind the candidate with over 80% approval.



Even at very conservative estimates, the five candidates after the special congress will each be spending a minimum of two million, one hundred thousand cedis (GH¢2, 100,000) on transport allowance alone to the over 140,000 delegates at the average rate of GH¢15 per head. Altogether, the five candidates will thus be spending GH¢10.5 million on transportation allowance alone to the delegates. Each candidate will conservatively spend another GH¢2 million on his campaign PR, adverts, communication, hotel accommodations and fuel to transport himself and his team on the rounds. So another GH¢10 million spent while the party is starved of funds. Next, the party will have to raise and spend more to organise polling at the 275 constituency centres including printing. In a matter of 49 days, between the five aspirants and the party, we can expect that at least GH¢25 million will be spent from August ending to October 18, 2014. To what end if one may ask, especially when a candidate has already garnered over 80% at the special congress. All this in the pursuit of democracy and at the expense of what? Mind you that the acclamations like were rightly done for President Kufuor in 2004 did not fall short of what we all accept today as democratic, no, not in the least. In the pursuit of democracy anywhere, the sacrifices of the individual interest to the collective interest of the group weigh better and achieves best results.



Alan’s singular act of concession at Legon in 2007 is what has kept him politically relevant in spite of his suicidal resignation and supposed absence from the subsequent campaigns. As a matter of course, Alan in this contest cannot get anything less than what he obtained in 2010 (over 19%) with an electoral college far smaller than what pertained then. In 2007 at Legon, with an electoral college bigger than what will pertain at the 31st August special congress, Alan polled 32% of the over 2,100 delegate votes. I expect Alan to once again show leadership to the pack by being the first to concede if he has to share 20% votes with the remaining five candidates. Once Alan does it, the rest will have no choice but to follow suit. But if Alan leaves it for the likes of Joe Ghartey to beat him to it, he is finished forever so far as NPP politics is concerned and I dare say Ghana politics. There is a principle termed as ‘stooping to conquer’ in the book “48 Laws of Power”. There are times we are actually preparing the grounds for our win when everyone else sees us to be stooping. I expect Alan to be riding high on this principle.



Beyond this immediate congress, I expect the party to make reforms about the laws and guidelines guiding all our future congress. It makes more sense to set a minimum number or percentage of votes a candidate must obtain to remain in the reckoning so far as the selection of a flagbearer is concerned. Anything short of that minimum should disqualify the aspirant. Also, endorsements of aspirants by delegates have become part of the process and we should consider revising our stance on it.



Acka-Nyanzu Blay-Miezah

Axim, Evalue-Gwira

ackablaymiezah@gmail.com