The governing National Democratic Congress has been making desperate attempts to portray the opposition New Patriotic Party as a divided party which should not be taken seriously by the electorate.
But from all indications, it is evidently clear that the NDC is certainly going into the December 7 elections with a more serious divided front, with the wife of the Founder of the governing party contesting the presidential election on the ticket of a different party.
Last Thursday, the National Democratic Party, founded by Mrs Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, wife of NDC Founder Jerry John Rawlings, submitted her forms to the Electoral Commission, officially confirming her readiness to join the campaign to get President Mahama and her husband’s party out of power.
What the NDC had sought to do for some time now is to feed on petty internal wrangling within the NPP, and seek to tell the electorate that all is not well with the party, especially after the party, through its internal constitutional processes, suspended three of its national executives for various infractions.
The NDC has the ignoble record of having more than three parties emerging from it as a result of ruthless treatments meted to some of its members.
Historically, people like Goosie Tandoh and Obed Asamoah, once prominent members of the party, all left the party after they were singled out for victimization with the former forming the National Reform Party and the latter forming the Democratic Freedom Party, to contest presidential elections held previously.
Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings who played a critical role in the NDC before breaking away prior to the 2012 elections to form the National Democratic Party has been a strong critic of the performance of the NDC, both under late President Mills and current President John Dramani Mahama.
In the view of the former First Lady, the tenets on which the NDC was built which included probity and accountability have been discarded and replaced with corruption and non-performance.
She has described the current government as the worst in the nation’s history, citing President Mahama’s lack of critical leadership skills and the gross mismanagement of the economy, coupled with high taxes and inimical business environment, which have combined to create unprecedented hardship on the masses, with increasing joblessness.
The decision by Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings to quit the NDC to form another party has left her husband in a situation where he fails to offer the kind of critical campaign support he gave his own party in the past.
Even during the official launch of the party’s campaign ahead of the December 7 elections in Cape Coast, the former president failed to endorse the candidature of President John Dramani Mahama who has has openly accused of allowing corruption to thrive in his government. He also failed to attend the party’s manifesto launch.
Mr Rawlings has interestingly endorsed the presidential candidate of the NPP, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, as an incorruptible leader who is not interested in material acquisitions.
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