Editorial: Is Obed’s Return The Best For NDC?

Politics, particularly democracy, we are told is a game of numbers. So, naturally, in a multi-party democracy like ours, political parties are predisposed to ‘hunting’ for numbers in terms of shoring up their memberships and also courting sympathy and attraction from non-members- what we call floating voters- all in a bid to gain numerical advantage over their opponents in elections.

In the general elections, the winner of the presidential election, being a candidate of a political party or an independent candidate by a constitutional requirement, has to get 50% plus 1 of the total valid votes cast.

The parliamentary elections also require a simple majority of the total valid votes cast to produce winners.

So numbers in this respect, we agree. But we are also not oblivious of the fact that numbers in themselves in politics are of no use, except they are QUALITY numbers. In other words, what actually wins the day for political parties in any given situation is the commitment of the people they have in fighting a common course.

The truth is that if persons, for whatever reason, decide to allow their parochial interest to override the collective interest of the party to which they claim to belong, then that is tantamount to numbers that are clearly not of quality and therefore are of no use to the party.

The NDC had had too many experiences of having people add up to the numbers but who were completely averse to the electoral fortunes of the party. Clearly, Dr Obed Asamoah is one of those people.

As chairman of the NDC, we were witnesses to Dr Obed Asamoah’s machinations against then Candidate Mills and the NDC in the 2004 elections, having fast-forwarded a grievance he had harboured against the ‘anointed son of former President Rawlings’ for the leadership position of the party, much to his chagrin.

We head and saw how Dr Obed Asamoah declared that then Candidate Mills was not a winnable candidate and did everything in his power to ensure the presidency elude him in 2004.

Our memory is still fresh about the events of Koforidua, Dr Obed Asamoah’s fall, his exit from the party, his collaboration with the NPP since then culminating in his support for Nana Akufo-Addo in the 2008 elections against President Mills, a man he declared worthless as far as the presidency is concerned. Today, we are being told that Obed is on his way back to the NDC. And the whole drama is being played out as though, he is coming back with multitudes of his comatose Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) members when it is clear the opposite is the case.

The Catalyst is not against the NDC’s decision to shore up its numbers ahead of 2012. Neither are we averse to reconciliation and healing of old wounds among old folks.

What we want to address the minds of all to is that in the quest to build a united force for battle in future elections, the party must be mindful of the agonizing efforts that have brought it this far and thus should not create more problems for itself by embracing saboteurs back into their fold.

People change. And we hope that Dr Obed Asamoah has truly changed his ways of sabotaging the NDC and that he is coming back with a clean heart to contribute his quota to the party he helped nurtured from inception.

Otherwise, then we think he should leave the party alone. Because traitors within are more dangerous than enemies without.

We say welcome back home to Obed, if only his intention this time around is a genuine one. We hope that he will come and add up to the QUALITY numbers of the NDC, for a better Ghana.