Ghana’s former Ambassador to the Netherlands, Dr. Tony Aidoo has disclosed why he stopped patronising congresses organised by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) detailing how the party has lost focus over the years.

According to him, his decision to ditch NDC congresses is because they never hold discussions on significant issues and policies that will improve the party but rather focus on trivial matters such as the nomination of party officials and flagbearers.

“Our congresses never extended to the discussions of policies and programmes. It was only for elections; elections of party officials and flagbearer whose razzmatazz ends and we go. We never had time to discuss policies and programmes,” he said.

Speaking at the National Conference on Rethinking Political Leadership in Ghana, Dr. Tony Aidoo said he finds it worrying how the NDC focuses mainly on elections indicating how the party has lost grip of its ideologies as a social democrat party.

Comparing the current state of the National Democratic Congress to that of the New Patriotic Party, Dr. Tony Aidoo said he is not surprised the distinction between his party and the NPP has narrowed.

He stressed, “No wonder the ideological difference between the NDC and the NPP have narrowed to the extent that there is no distinction between the two and yet there should be distinction. We are supposed to be social democrats for God sake and what do social democrats do? They consider policies and programmes that inure to the benefit of the wider and larger majority of the population rather than contribute to what is happening.”

Dr. Tony Aidoo further expressed his disgust on how political parties in the country run the economy by thinking of their selfish interest leading to the generation of hooligans and vigilantes in the country.

According to him, “We have party conflict and the growth of vigilantism are the politicisation of crimes where hooligans and criminals vandalise state property and go and hide behind their political leadership and the police are afraid to throw the book at them. We have the treatment of state property as party property by supporters of the incumbent regime.....In Ghana’s political party those with deep pockets form a cabal by which they dominate the party’s interest. Elections have been a ritual for the circulation of the elites because that’s what it has been over the years. You go to elections, one party wins overthrow the elites of the previous regime and bring in his elites every 8 years we go through that ritual”.