A private lawyer and lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ), Osei Kwadwo, has urged the leadership of the National Democratic Congress, especially the Council of Elders, to work to resolve any differences between former Presidents Jerry John Rawlings and John Mahama before the party goes to congress to elect new leaders.

According to him, although members of the NDC are playing the ostrich, the two former presidents are not on good terms and the Council of Elders must face reality and heal the wounds before thinking of the next elections.

Mr Osei Kwadwo made these comments as he presented his views on the report compiled by the Kwesi Botchwey committee tasked to probe the defeat of the NDC in last year’s elections, in an interview on Accra News on Tuesday June 20.

He said: “Some NDC members are calling for early congress because they have heard that former President Rawlings wants new leaders. But let me say that they will need to submit the report to the Council of Elders for them to do a preliminary work on the report and unite the Rawlings and Mahama factions. That should be done before going for congress.

“If they attempt to go for congress without uniting the two factions, it will be difficult for them to handle the excesses. People must swallow their pride and work to unite the two factions, otherwise the party will struggle in opposition for long.”

Meanwhile the committee has recommended, among other things, that the NDC should reconnect to the social democratic principles upon which it was founded.

Additionally, the committee has recommended that steps should be taken to restore the integrity of the biometric register and the expanded Electoral College.

Presenting the 455-page report of its findings to the leadership of the party on Monday June 19, Prof Botchwey said: “We did a very comprehensive job of listening to everybody.

“Everybody spoke frankly and honestly. We do make a number of recommendations including a recommendation that the party puts together a group of credible and eminent members of our party to undertake a peace-making and healing tour of the country and visit all key sectors and constituencies. We believe this is extremely important for purposes of creating the necessary conditions for any serious work that needs to be done in the way of the party restructuring and renewal.

“We also have a recommendation that the party takes steps to restore the integrity of the biometric register and the expanded Electoral College. Additionally, we recommend that steps be taken to restore the capacity and effectiveness of the party’s organs, especially to the branch level. We believe these organs are most critical because they are the party’s immediate connections with the people. We are, after all, a truly mass party.

“We also have recommendations on ways in which we can and must improve the collation of election results. We also believe that steps ought to be taken by the party to reconnect itself properly to our social democratic roots and the principal actors in these social democratic roots – the social forces that populate our social democratic base.

In a subsequent interview with Class 91.3FM’s Paa Kwesi Parker-Wilson, Prof Botchwey explained what he meant by the party should reconnect to the social democratic principles.

“The founder of the NDC, of course is a very important member of our party but the point we are making is a larger one, that the party should go back to reconnect itself to its social democratic roots,” he said.

“Social democratic party is a mass party and in all social democratic parties, the focus really is on the working people, ordinary people and vulnerable people in the society who must be helped and championed to ensure that their living conditions improve; that they have access to proper health care and also have the freedom to go about their business freely.

“So in saying that we should reconnect to the social democratic rules, we are saying that the party should walk the talk, that it should behave like a social democratic party and introduce policies that really advance the objective interest of the various classes of people.

“The party must begin to conduct itself in a way that will help advance the interest of working people – farmers, small-scale businesses, students and all the vulnerable people in the society who need to tap into the range of the values the party stands for.”

“We also do recommend that steps ought to be taken to strengthen research and intelligence in the party. This should involve crowding in a larger body of the party’s intellectual capacity which has not been particularly active in the last few years.”