AND WHY, ALSO, DID DR ARTHUR KENNEDY DEVELOP “ENEMIES” IN NPP?

BY: Otchere Darko

Ref: *“He noted that President Mills was so disturbed by the incessant criticisms and verbal lashings from his own party members, notably former President Rawlings and his cronies that he wanted to resign to have his peace of mind.” *[Report by Daily Guide]

Looking at what is happening inside the NDC, one notices a negative development that is taking place and which centres around the political intolerance of the sitting President because of his inability to swallow criticisms against him, despite his high intellectual background. This negative development is turning into a nasty “political circus” within NDC and bringing back memories of Ghana’s “intolerable past” during which time internal dissent was considered “evil” and always crushed accordingly, while external opposition was in its turn considered “devilish” and always hunted and destroyed. This growing pattern of intolerance for internal criticism, WHICH IS NOT UNIQUE TO NDC, shows that Ghanaian political leaders have total dislike for opposition including, surprisingly, even where such opposition comes from within their own parties.

The current ongoing tension in the NDC that seems to be splitting that party stems from the general dislike for the “internal criticisms” going on against the Government by some key NDC members who feel that the Mills administration is not doing well. Former President Rawlings and his wife are particularly seen as “enemies of Mills” because the former First Couple have considered it a duty to criticise Mills for not performing, just as the couple and Mills together severally and individually criticised the Kufuor administration in the past when NDC was in opposition. And why, anyway, should the Rawlingses keep quiet if they believe that Mills is underperforming? Is it because Mills is an NDC President? Also, why should they criticise Mills “only privately”, as many of their “internal accusers” argue, if the Rawlingses need to publicly distance themselves from whatever they think is going on wrongly in the current NDC administration? We noted also that when Dr Sekour Nkrumah criticised President Mills, he was quickly butchered and stripped off his position in NDC. Yet Dr Nkrumah, like the Rawlingses, was not doing anything that could be said to be wrong, in my opinion. He was merely allowing the Ghanaian public and members of NDC to see how he felt about President Mills’ administration. This, to me, was the only way available to him to distance himself from a Government formed by his party but which was, in his opinion, performing badly. In my view, “internal criticisms”, whether they are made privately or publicly, are one best way through which a governing party can take stock of actions it has taken or omitted; or through which it can re-examine and review its policies; and through which it can re-strategise, wherever necessary. This pattern of disliking and attempting to gag “internal critics” is a negative and counterproductive political development that is not confined to Mills’ NDC only, as already emphasised above.

In the NPP also, people like Dr Arthur Kennedy, Mr PC Ofori-Appiah and Mr Kwame Pianim have all been seen by their party as “moles” within, and “internal enemies” of the NPP, simply because they have come public to denounce their party or have said or written something publicly that appeared distasteful to the party they are members of. In my opinion however, whatever these NPP key members said or wrote about their party should even have been said or written much earlier than the recent time those exposures were made. I do believe that had these so-called “moles” or “internal enemies” been bolder and exposed their party’s weaknesses earlier, and the NPP had accepted their criticisms in good faith and moved to take corrective actions to remedy the weaknesses that existed in Kufuor’s administration in particular and in the NPP in general, that party might not have lost the 2008 elections. In all liberal multiparty democracies, public criticisms from inside and outside parties are accepted. Why should Ghanaian parties and leaders behave differently from how other parties and leaders in other liberal multiparty democracies behave?

In Britain and America, from whom in particular we have borrowed our system of democracy and governance, party members come public to criticise their parties to prove to their electorates and their countries that they do not agree with their parties, or their governments over certain issues. When Tony Blair took his country to war in Iraq, some key members of his party’s front and back benches in Parliament openly criticised him. Some of them, including the then Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, now deceased, went even further to resign their posts as a way of distancing themselves from what they saw as their party’s bad “Iraq-war” policy. The practice of party members publicly criticising their parties while in opposition or in government, in my opinion, is part of the democratic process and should be seen as a “positive development”, rather than being seen as negative or as undermining the parties of the critics.

Ghanaians must therefore change their attitude toward party members who publicly criticise their parties. Without members coming public to criticise their parties, how can Ghanaians know where these individual party members stand on issues that they oppose but which their parties support, or the vice versa? The recent NDC’s “STX Deal” and the past NPP’s “Vodafone Deal” are examples of Government decisions and actions that are widely believed to be bad and wrong but which have been taken by the two main parties. If during such moments of deal negotiation, key members of the two governing parties were bold enough to come public and openly criticise these deals, foreign companies could not “buy” our political leaders with the insulting “peanuts” they have been using to bribe and “buy the consciences” of our politicians. For example, when a few years back some NPP members in Parliament accepted “bribes” from Vodafone, [according to Mr PC Appiah-Ofori], if some insiders in NPP, [including Mr PC Appiah-Ofori himself], had been bold enough to come public at that time to denounce those corrupt members of their party, the Vodafone deal might have been different. Also, a couple of months ago when 12 NDC members , through their spokesperson, openly admitted to have each accepted $2000 from STX while they were in Korea to negotiate the “STX Deal”, if any bold person in NDC had come forward at that moment to say publicly that the payments amounted to “bribery and corruption” when those NDC recipients STUPIDLY defended the payments as just “gifts for shopping” and not “bribes”, the “STX Deal” could not have been signed so “eagerly” by the Government to the disadvantage of Ghana and the advantage of our foreign partners.

*The Rawlingses may have a questionable past, especially regarding the murder of the three High Court judges and the controversial killing of three former Heads of State who had done nothing more than what JJ Rawlings himself did.....which is “removing previous Governments from power and putting themselves in their places to the detriment of Ghana’s political and economic progress”. Secondly, the Rawlingses may also have had a total of nineteen years in Government during which they could have changed Ghana for better and not for worse. Again, it may be said that the Rawlingses themselves may have hated criticisms when they were in power and may have given “slaps on the face” to some of their dissenting civilian team members. And most important of all, the Rawlingses may have founded the NDC and may also have been instrumental for the last electoral success of their party and the man they are criticising now. Despite all these presumptions about them, nobody can remove from the Rawlingses their right to criticise the current Government, if they GENUINELY believe that Mills is performing badly. Apart from their inalienable right to exercise this democratic duty, their ability to criticise Mills publicly shows, firstly, that they are courageous and, secondly, that “the cutlass of the Rawlingses” metaphorically cuts on both sides.... something which is immensely rare and laudable; even if we want to argue that this “cutlass of the Rawlingses” does not cut the Rawlingses themselves, which is “natural” and “expected”.

*Similarly, the fact that Dr Sekour Nkrumah was an executive member of the NDC did not take from him his right to criticise Mills openly to show his disapproval of Mills’ leadership, or to distance himself from his Government if he believed that Mills was weak, or that his Government was doing things he, Dr Nkrumah, did not approve of. *Also Mr PC Appiah-Ofori had a right as an NPP MP to criticise publicly his party over the NPP’s “Vodafone Deal” that was done when they were in Government. Doing that should not be seen as being anti-NPP, or pro-NDC. *Dr Arthur Kennedy also had a right to publish anything against anybody and any party, including his own, as long as what he published was not libellous. The fact that he chose to publish weaknesses in his party, which shows his immense courage, should not make him less loyal to his party than any other NPP member. *Irrespective of his own “past record” that might have been rightly or wrongly “tainted” by the PNDC and which destroyed his past Presidential ambition, Mr Kwame Pianim had a right to feel, and to declare that “President Mills is not corrupt”, [basing his comparison, {perhaps}, on the “perceived records” of former President Rawlings and Kufuor who are both widely believed, or have both been accused through unproved allegations to have “secretly” used their offices to personally enrich themselves]. Expressing his feeling or opinion in this way should not make Mr Pianim a bad NPP member, or be seen to be promoting an NDC agenda.

In short, these “internal critics”, whether they are in NDC and or in NPP, who are seen negatively by their parties and constantly bombarded and called traitorous names by fellow party members should rather be seen positively by all Ghanaians, including their parties. The roles they play are akin to, if not bolder than, those played by the opposition. Their “kanawu” spirit and their no-nonsense attitude against the culture of “kataso-buaso” in parties should be commended, rather than criticised. They should be seen by Ghanaians generally as the Nation’s “binoculars” that help us to “see” things that otherwise could remain obscured from the “eyes” of majority of Ghanaians. They should also be seen by their parties as “inside mirrors” that help those parties to “see themselves” better, where “outside mirrors” would give distorted and less precise view of things. Parties should understand that, like mirrors, “internal critics” need “exposure” to function effectively. Just as people cannot use mirrors in “darkness” and expect them to be “active reflectors”, so also should parties not tell their members to criticise “only in chambers” and expect them to be “effective critics”. *TO OUR POLITICAL LEADERS WHO CANNOT STAND CRITICISMS, LET IT BE SAID THAT IT IS THE ABILITY TO ACCEPT INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CRITICISMS THAT MAKES A POLITICIAN A GOOD AND SUCCESSFUL LEADER. *AND FOR OUR “INTERNAL CRITICS” WHO ARE BEING PERSECUTED BY THEIR PARTIES, A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT IS THAT IT IS BETTER TO OPENLY CRITICISE YOUR PARTY WHEN NECESSARY AND RISK BEING “THROWN OVERBOARD” LIKE A “JONAH”, THAN ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE BOUND BY “UNQUESTIONABLE LOYALTY” AND STAY MUTE CONTRARY TO SENSIBILITY, LIKE A “LOYAL SHIP CAPTAIN” IN A SINKING SHIP, AND RISK “PERISHING” WITH THE PARTY.

SOURCE: OTCHERE DARKO. [This writer is a centrist, semi-liberalist, pragmatist, an advocate for “inter-ethnic cooperation and unity” and a community-based development protagonist. He opposes the negative, corrupt and domineering politics of NDC and NPP and actively campaigns for the development and strengthening of “Third Parties” in Ghana.]