NPP threatens violence

The next general elections in Ghana may be a few years away but the opposition New Patriotic Party is planning to cause trouble. They are busy fine tuning their strategy for elections 2012. And they have just one formula“ create as much confusion as possible.

In a recent article that appeared as conciliatory and well-meaning on the surface, the head of the Danquah Institute, Gabby Asare Otchere Darko said his party would drive the country on the brink of violence if it didn't get its way.

In a rather interesting twist of the facts Gabby has accused the NDC of creating tension in the last elections. He claims the NDC "was so ruthlessly efficient in developing in the minds of their hardcore supporters and also in that of some security personnel that the Electoral Commission and the ruling party were conspiring to rig the election results."

That is completely false. The reverse happened and we have a responsibility to set the records straight just so our children and the international community are not mislead.

The people of Ghana have ambitiously set themselves a difficult but achievable task of doing things differently from their compatriots on the continent; Ghanaians have vowed never again to permit deceit, endorse corrupt governments and not fight for their hard won freedom and justice. We have vowed never again to allow politicians to steal our mandate.

What is true about Gabby's recent article is that Obama would not have chosen our country if the NPP had succeeded in their attempts to reverse the choice of Ghanaian voters. There would have been a spontaneous uprising and bellicose characters in the NPP like Gabby perhaps would have been writing their commentaries from flats and apartment in London or New York.

Also truthful about Gabby’s feature is that “Ghana’s election was not quite the golden example it has been hailed as (or that we wish it had been)” and that was thanks to the NPP’s attempts to subvert the will of the people.

It was the NPP that sought to invalidate the results of the elections. It did everything to provoke the NDC to wrath. A section of the Volta Region stronghold of the NDC was blockaded - State machinery was used by the NPP to disenfranchise NDC voters when the government mislead voters with an announcement that the Aflao boarder would remain open, it went ahead and closed it in an unprecedented fashion.

It is amazing how the opposition NPP now has “well-founded concerns about the reliability of our electoral register.” Hitherto, everything as far as they were concerned was great; they only lost faith in the system when defeat stared them in the face. When the NDC, then opposition complained about the deficiencies of the system, they accused us of whimpering. What did the NPP do when the NDC called the EC to publish the voter register with pictures on its website? They rubbished our calls. What did they say when we raise red flags? What was their response when the NDC raised concerns over the bloated register in the Ashanti Region? We were ridiculed and accused of fearing a straight fight.

Tension was heightened when the announcement of results were postponed as a result of the NPP's unsubstantiated claims of rigging and as if that were not enough, the NPP dramatically went to court to seek an injunction to stop the Tain election from happening. So how could the NPP, a party with a militia wing (Dan Botwe’s Action Troopers), state machinery and resources have been victims?

I admire Nana Addo not because he could be a fine leader but for his courtroom panache and we all know his party thinks he is a divisive figure and cannot be trusted with the leadership of our country. Nana Addo and the rest of the hawks would get a page or two instead of a footnote in our country’s history if they exerted their energies towards building bridges not just within their party but across the nation. The belligerence would only see them isolated.

Prof. Mills would have won the elections by a landslide if the NPP hadn't tampered with the results. But Gabby claims they were the victims and he has warned that his party cannot guarantee there wouldn’t be violence if the next elections didn't go their way. It is a heartbreaking and unfortunate statement coming from a man I think represents the future of the NPP.

In spite of all its sins and flaws the NPP indeed deserves some credit for its contributions to the democratic space however small, and that is what they should build on. We have come a long way and have much to lose from pushing our country to political conflict. ‘Doomsday politics’ as espoused by Mr. Otchere Darko would only reverse the trend of progress we have all contributed to building. It is a naive approach to politics and one that would only isolate us from the rest of the forward moving world. A responsible party is one that can guarantee the prevailing peace and security of the nation and I would prevail on Gabby and his party to give Ghanaians the assurance that their party would respect the wishes of Ghanaians in future elections.

What we in the NDC are advocating and practicing is a system that respects the will of the people in choosing their leader. We do not have any interest in setting back the clock of development which we and our political opponents have built up over the years. The NDC would always respect the will of the Ghanaian people and our friends in opposition must stop the war language and do same.

RAS MUBARAK

Broadcaster & Publicist for NDC

mmubarak79@yahoo.com