Deputy Eastern Regional Organizer for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Hackman Kabori has attributed the defeat of his party to egocentrism and poor conflict resolution mechanism.
According to him, the introduction of the new Electoral College concept during the primaries of the NDC was good, but the timing of its implementation was wrong.
Speaking on Okay Fm’s Ade Akye Abia Morning Show, Hackman Kabori revealed that one major factor which stopped their agenda 50-50 in the Eastern Region and eventually affected the party’s victory in the 2016 election was the wind of change blowing all over the world.
“The first factor is that there was a wind of change of government blowing all over the world, starting from Nigeria, America, and Gambia
“Secondly, the way and manner we managed our primaries also worked against us. We have expanded our electoral college to cover a lot of people and this is new concept, though good, we couldn’t manage our conflict resolution mechanism well,” he added.
“Another factor resulting to our defeat is self-interest as everybody has their own interest in joining the party. As you move in a different direction, others are doing otherwise. Those who voted at the primaries to choose a candidate did not look at the person who can win the elections for us but rather voted for those they feel can give them what they want if they become MPs; whether they are good candidates or not, they voted in that direction,” he revealed.
He insisted that inasmuch as the Regional, Constituency and Branch Executives worked very hard to secure victory for the party and for President Mahama, there was poor management of the new concept regarding the Electoral College even though the concept is good.
“If we had managed it well, it would have helped us because for instance, this concept allowed about 10,000 people in a constituency to vote and as we could not manage the losers in the primaries in a particular constituency, the over 4,000 people felt bitter and decided not to help in the main elections. We tried our best to manage the conflict resolution but it didn’t work out,” he bemoaned.
“Agenda 50-50 was our intention but the majority of the people in Eastern Region probably felt the timing for the agenda is not due and so they didn’t vote for us. We are not discouraged but what we are saying is that our people should exercise patience as majority of Ghanaians have demonstrated what they want . . . We know that as we live there are better times ahead for us and in 2020 elections, we shall be back to deliver,” he assured.
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