JJ to Hit Campaign Trail Again

THE FLAGBEARER of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, has disclosed that the ex-president, Mr. Jerry John Rawlings would be fully involved in the party's campaign ahead of next year's election.

According to the flagbearer, the ex-president has a lot of potentials, which would help the NDC in its efforts to wrestle political power from the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).

"The former president just like any member of the NDC has a role to play and I think he has enough experience and potentials which the party has already strategized to exploit to its advantage," he stated.

Prof. Mills disclosed this in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on the programme dubbed "Focus on Africa" on Monday evening.

The BBC interviewer reminded the NDC flagbearer of a recent political talk by the ex-president in London during which he (Mr. Rawlings) openly campaigned for the NDC and wondered whether in his opinion, the former president was not gradually assuming the lead role in the NDC's 2004 campaign trail.

In a response, Prof. Mills, the former vice president, stressed that Mr. Rawlings was not in any way at the forefront of the party's electioneering activities but was only performing what would help the party in his own small way.

"The issue is that when Rawlings coughs, people tend to make a lot of noise about it and wrongly assume that he is leading the party towards the 2004 elections," he explained.

According to him the party has fully put in place the necessary mechanisms to get the right people playing the appropriate roles at any given time and so the former president would be performing whatever role he can play best during the campaigns.

When Prof. Mills was further asked whether the involvement of the ex-president in the campaigns for his (Mills) presidential ambition would not consolidate the widely speculation that he cannot do without Mr. Rawlings, he responded in a negative, saying he is his own man.

"That is not the case. I think that is a wrong notion. I am my own man, in fact I am nobody's man but I am Atta Mills' man," he pointed out.

Touching on the prospects of his party in the next elections which would be the fourth consecutive general elections under the fourth republican constitution, he noted that the party has basis for hope in the next general elections than it even had in the run up to the 2000 elections.

"The economic conditions of Ghanaians have worsened for the past two and half years and the numerous electoral promises that the current government made before they assumed power have not yet been fulfilled and this gives us the conviction that Ghanaians are going to vote massively for the NDC to come back to power," the flagbearer declared.