Rawlings not founder of NDC

The Independent, a private newspaper says its investigations at the Electoral Commission (EC) have revealed that former president Rawlings is not a founding member of the NDC in spite of attempts to portray him so.

In the run-up to the NDC’s delegates’ congress, all manner of propaganda have been flying regarding what position to be accorded the former president in view of his perceived relevance to the fortunes of the party.

“Investigations carried out at the archives of the EC show that the former president did not sign up as a founding member of the NDC in June 1992 when the party filed its registration documents with the Commission as required by law.”

“To compound Rawlings’ woes, it also came out during our investigations that at the time the NDC was duly registered with the EC, he was a serving officer of the Ghana Armed Forces and could not have therefore signed up as a founder of the NDC or even a founding member since serving military officers are not allowed to play politics until they resign their commission.”

In the run-up to the formation and consolidation of the NDC, a rally was held at Cape Coast in 1992 where Rawlings announced to the consternation of many Ghanaians that he was going to run for political office under the banner of the NDC.

According to the paper, on the way to Cape Coast, the former president was still undecided and it took a barrage of harangues from his wife, Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings between Mankessim and Cape Coast with a stop over at Saltpond before Rawlings decided to run for president.

“When this paper laid hands on the NDC’s registration papers last Tuesday at the offices of the EC, it became clear that most of the big guns in the NDC did not sign up as founding members.”

The political party registration forms as provided by the EC does not also make provision for the place of a founder of a political party. According to legal experts, once Rawlings’s name is not on the registration form, he cannot claim to be a leading member of the party.

After a careful scrutiny of the signatures of the NDC’s founding members for all the 110 districts without the name and signature of former president Rawlings, the Independent says it zeroed in on the names that signed up as founding members of the NDC for the Greater Accra and Volta Regions, where Rawlings could have signed as a founding member for obvious reasons.

This decision was informed by the fact that the electoral laws of Ghana demand every political party should have a person signing up for it as a founding member in all 110 districts of the country.