NDC criticises NPP's planned demonstration against Rawlings

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has criticised the decision by the Ashanti regional executive of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to organise a demonstration against former President Jerry Rawlings over his alleged derogatory remarks made against President John Agyekum Kufuor in Kumasi recently.

Mr Emmanuel Nti-Fordjour, the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NDC, said that would only raise the political temperature and heighten tension.

He described the reasons the NPP was assigning for its intended street protest as "baseless and completely untenable".

Mr Nti-Fordjour, who was speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Kumasi on Sunday, said although it was within the constitutional right of the party and its supporters to go on street demonstration, that right must be exercised on "more convincing, compelling and noble basis".

He said, "we in the NDC do not want to believe that this is a subterfuge to counter our planned march for survival in Kumasi".

Mr Nti-Fordjour accused the NPP of double standards, claiming that the former President has been at the receiving end of worst insults, vilification and denigration by the NPP and its supporters.

According to him, "radio phone-in programmes particularly in Kumasi has always and continue to be inundated with abusive and vicious attacks on the person of the former President".

The NDC Regional Chairman said he found it ironic that the "NPP and its leadership were pretending to have so soon forgotten that they used to label Rawlings as the devil on their campaign platform" and wondered if there could be anything more insulting than that.