ATTA MILLS CHALLENGE
Atta Mills says he feels healthier now than ever before. After shedding excess weight, he now boasts of trim waistlines. Atta Mills has the figure many people pay substantial amount of dollars to have in the form of weight loss in many jurisdictions. Atta Mills feels buoyant enough to challenge naysayers to 100 meter dash race. Would any of the obese men in power and their affiliates be ready to lace their racing spikes? Mr Daniel Baiden, Vice Chairman of the Washington DC Metro area NDC Chapter, has offered, though, he does not mention the quantum of honorarium he would give to anyone who would dare take up Atta Mills’ racing challenge.

ATTA MILLS ON RIGHTEOUS PATH

To postulate that those raising questions about the health and weight loss of Prof John Evans Atta Mills are patriots with genuine concerns for the political future of Ghana is tantamount to accepting the ludicrous proposition that the Kufuor led NPP government is not an elitist government, with no pretensions of seeking to perpetuate its rule and would play fair and not employ dirty tactics as usual in 2008 elections. At the end of this discussion, it would be submitted that such so-called patriots are nothing but politically spotted hyenas making characteristic cowardly shrill cry to coerce the good Prof Mills from his high perch on the polls leading into the NDC Flag bearer Contest at Legon, University of Ghana on December 21, 2006. But such ignoble efforts are bound to fail because people have determined that the modus operandus of these self-seeking anti-Atta Mills folks is anchored only on negative campaign tactics, in its varying degrees. Voters do not like to be manipulated that way!

CLEAN POLITICIAN

The cleanest politician vying for the 2008 Presidential Contest is none other than Prof. John Atta Mills. As is the favorite saying of this writer, Atta Mills is as clean as pure water. He served Ghana as Vice President for four years between 1996 and 2000. Not a single of the many forensic investigations conducted into the NDC tenure by the succeeding NPP government has unearthed any corrupt deal on the part of Prof John Atta Mills. It is clear therefore that attacking Prof Atta Mills on corruption is a “No-Go Area” for his opponents. Atta Mills’ opponents in Ghana and abroad, have been wringing their hands in confusion and gnashing their teeth in anguish, not seeing clearly on how to defeat the good man whose great purpose is to unite Ghana once again and allow the Constitution to work for all of Ghanaians, not only for his brethren who will vote for him. Anti-Mills forces have therefore hitched their poisonous political wagon to Negative Campaigning Smear Tactics out of frustration.

NEGATIVE ATTACK ON ATTA MILLS

In order to avoid ambiguity about this discussion, we should look at what Negative Campaigning is all about. Political Scientists have described it simply as a political ploy where attempts are made to try to score advantage by harping on what one considers to be negative aspects of an opponent and not the positive attributes of one’s own candidate. So people who will not vote for Atta Mills simply because they are dyed-in-the-wool NPP or are his opponents at large are finding reasons to twist their tongues about Atta Mills’ ear and sinus condition, when the good man himself says he is fit. Those people cannot claim to be the reincarnation of the Biblical Magi or even Good Samaritans on the quest to bring “Tidings of Great Joy’ to Atta Mills. To put it mildly, their mission is to sink Atta Mills’ Presidential Candidacy with their unprovable swipe that he is not healthy enough to lead Ghana as President from 2009 onwards. They have carefully designed that plan and latched on to that negative attack to destroy Atta Mills’ front runner reputation.

FAIR NDC FLAG BEARER CONTEST

There has been negative propaganda that the NDC contest would be a farce and that Atta Mills has been pre-ordained to win. Nothing could be as wrong as that misconception! All the four contestants have mounted a spirited campaign. With the superb work done by the Dr. Kwabena Adjei led NDC National executives that enforced edicts that no executives play any role in the campaign of the 4 NDC contestants, coupled with the stoic refusal of NDC Founder Rawlings to be drawn into endorsing any of the candidates, NDC has truly cemented its internal democracy.

SECRET VOTING

The voting process for the flag bearer ship will be by secret ballot which is a voting method in which a delegate’s choice is confidential. Delegates are provided with pre-printed ballot papers with the name of the candidates and respective checkboxes for marking or thumb printing. Provisions are made at the polling place for the delegates to record their preferences in secret. The ballots are specifically designed to eliminate bias and to prevent anyone from revealing their vote to anyone and the delegates place the ballots into a sealed transparent box, which is emptied later for counting in front of everyone. This ensures that the delegate record a sincere choice by forestalling attempts to influence the delegate by intimidation or bribery. Voting would be supervised by the Electoral Commission of Ghana, just as would be done when NPP goes to polls. The system is one means of achieving the goal of political privacy.

So therefore, any propaganda that the NDC Founder J.J. Rawlings would influence delegates cannot be supported by any provable facts, since he will never see or know how a delegate votes. Negative campaigning about NDC’s transparency in the forthcoming Flag Bearer congress has evoked negative responses. It has shifted focus away from substantive issues about what policies the candidates stand for and turned attention toward the personality of NDC Founder JJ Rawlings, whose actions so far, has not lent any credence to false charges from those negative campaigners who now appear to understand the following prediction from some strategists: “An effect of negative campaigning is that while it motivates the base of support it can alienate centrist and undecided voters from the political process, reducing voter turnout and radicalizing politics”.

RESEARCH OPINIONS ABOUT NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNING

NDC circa 2004-2006 has thus far given its NPP opponents serious headaches. Those opponents are at their wits end and are shivering at the thought that nothing they have done so far has submerged NDC which is showing greater strength and resilience than ever before. World renowned political scientists Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar amongst others have written extensively on effects of negative political campaign. They have concluded that negative campaign used in democracies as “an element of adversarial policy making and electoral processes demobilizes people”. However, Martin Wattenberg and Craig Brians, of the University of California, have since then further examined whether negative campaign mobilizes or alienates voters. Their conclusion is that data used by Stephen Ansolabehere in the 1994 American Political Science Review article to advance the hypothesis that negative campaigning demobilizes voters was flawed.

Atta Mills certainly appreciates facts of life where lemon can be turned into lemonade and where fermented corn can be turned into Kenkey or Banku. So whenever appropriate, the good Prof Mills’ team should take due notice of suggestion from Cathy Allen, president of Campaign Connection of Seattle, “that negative campaigning might be the ‘proper course’ during political contests in the following situations: when taking on an incumbent (read NPP) ; when being significantly outspent ( read NPP); when there is irrefutable information that the opponent has done something wrong( read NPP numerous corruption scandals); when the candidate has little name recognition (read any of 16 NPP candidates like KK Apraku).” Other researchers have confirmed Cathy Allen’s positive results from negative campaigns. Dr. Rick Farmer of the University of Akron found that negative ads are more memorable than positive ads when they reinforce a preexisting belief and are relevant to the central issues of a marketing campaign. Researchers at the University of Georgia found that the impact of negative ads increases over time, while positive ads used to counteract negative ads lack the power of negative ads. Research also suggests negative campaigning introduces controversy and raises public awareness through additional news coverage.

GHANAIAN STRATEGISTS

Political tacticians, including those in Ghana, know the potency of negative campaigning and when they set things in motion, they do so with calculated attention or interest. The negative attack on Atta Mills making his health an issue was carefully inserted into the NDC discourse. It is following in a common negative technique preying on the subconscious mind of voters and sending the message that Atta Mills is a danger to the nation in that he will be too ill to run the government, raising the specter of surrogates being in charge. Atta Mills has however forcefully challenged this bogus message. The NDC campaign strategy of 2006 has confused opponents of Atta Mills who have observed with trepidation that their usage of the “consultation” tag which has grossly maligned Mills of offering Ghanaians “a remote-controlled government”, would not be credible in this campaign. So they are going by the back-door with the same unfounded charge that Atta Mills would still be “remote-controlled” because he is not healthy. With that also not gaining any traction, they are introducing another element questioning how Atta Mills managed to fund his Nomination fee. Here then is the trickery of Atta Mills’ opponents which Atta Mills has capitalized on to his advantage. Atta Mills has turned negative to positive by showing he is his own man and is in charge of his own campaign. He has confounded opponents who claim falsely that his campaign is ‘broke’ and is unable to fill the petrol tanks of his campaign vehicles, how much more pay for the one hundred million Cedis fee, roughly, the equivalent of ten thousand dollars. The quiet, unassuming, good Prof Mills is allowing his actions do the talking for him. His opponents make loud false noises, but he counters with brave, bold moves.

ATTA MILLS IS FOR POSITIVE CAMPAIGNING

Atta Mills has preached the gospel of political campaign that should be free of negative politicking because he understands the purposes of negative campaigning as well as the forms it takes which invariably grates on the sensibilities of right thinking members of civil society, always that segment constituting the silent majority. For example, one will never hear Atta Mills using ad hominem to attack an opponent. Atta Mills’ religious values do not permit him to speak grossly and out of turn. Atta Mills knows negative campaigning is the preserve of politicians who lack ideas or are devious and are unable or unwilling to contest issues. Is it any wonder that after staying for years in the top echelon of leadership in Ghana, none of Anti-Mills folks can attribute any flippant, unsavory or loose talk to the good and disciplined Prof Mills? Only words of wisdom escape the guarded lips of the well-bred, good Atta Mills.

Atta Mills recognizes that dirty tricks are also common in negative political campaigns and these generally involve secret leaking of damaging information to the media. Those who prefer this type of negative campaign isolate themselves in the hope that they are immune from backlash, knowing that if the truth is discovered it could severely damage their credibility. Other dirty tricks include trying to feed an opponent’s team false information hoping they will use it and embarrass themselves.

Mr Nii Lantey Vanderpuije, Operations Manager for Prof Atta Mills has pointed out that those attacking Prof Atta Mills hide behind unfriendly newspaper organizations, to launch attacks as coming from a neutral source. He noted “negative attacks on Atta Mills are also being conducted by proxy”. For instance, a recent highly partisan attack on Atta Mills was placed in Ghanaian newspaper recently under the guise of ‘political analyses’.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, this writer strongly believes that the concerted efforts by anti-Mills forces complemented by some within NDC to unnecessarily call Atta Mills’ medical history into question and escalate their attack on Atta Mills’ financial history are on the same side of negative campaign attempts, which has backfired big time. By their negative campaign those politically spotted hyenas have created the impression that they are mean-spirited.

As rightly queried by Atta Mills; “Which of them do not have a hospital card and which of them can beat me at a 100 meter race”?