COMMENTARY ON THE FORMATION OF THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY, NDP

The agenda of the Rawlingses to ensure that President Atta Mills does not get a second term in office is surely on course with their floating of a new political party to contest the December general elections. The spokesman for the Rawlingses was allegedly caught on tape in a discussion with NPP's Gabby Otchere Darko hinting of a "Plan B" to make it impossible for President Mills to get a second term in office. This culminated in his suspension from the NDC as a Deputy General Secretary. The Rawlingses have never forgiven the Mills' Administration ever since President Mills thrashed the former first lady Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings by a whopping 97 to three percent votes when Nana Konadu challenged President Mills for the NDC flag bearership at the party's Sunyani Congress. It is obvious the formation of the new party by the Rawlingses is intended to put spokes into the wheels of the forward movement of the NDC. The plan became clearer when the former first lady challenged the NDC over the ownership of the party's logo, the umbrella. Nana Konadu took the whole nation by surprise when she alluded to having registered the Umbrella logo of the NDC as her intellectual property with the Copyright Office. The new party of the Rawlingses has as its logo a flying dove similar to the one on top of the umbrella of the NDC and the same black, green, red and white colours of the NDC. The only difference is that the bird in the NDP logo is holding on to the Gye Nyame Symbol with the motto, justice, unity, peace and progress. After ruling the country for well over 19 years it is unfortunate the Rawlings still want to be at the commanding heights of Ghanaian politics to the detriment of their states man ship.

Truly, multiplicity of parties enhances the nation's democratic flavour but where a party is formed borne out of mischief, then, it leaves much to be desired. With a little over four months to general elections one cannot easily fathom why the Rawlingses would want to float a new party if not to destabilise the National Democratic Congress, NDC. History is replete with cases of breakaway parties but these parties never performed in elections only to return to their mother parties. Just recently, the Democratic Freedom Party led by Dr. Obed Asamoah returned to the NDC after having broken away in 2006 over petty disagreements. The National Reform Party also seceded from the NDC over the hand picking of Professor Atta Mills by former President Rawlings to be flagbearer of the NDC for the 2000 general elections. Ghana's first President Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is on record to be the only politician who broke away from his mother party to form his own political party and succeeded.

As things stand now, Mr. Rawlings must relinquish his hold on the NDC as the founder for he cannot eat his cake and have it. The NDC must have itself to blame for over pampering the Rawlingses to this extent. Indeed there can be no tears for Anancy. It is regrettable the likes of Dr. Mamboah Rockson, Josiah Aryeh and by extension Michael Teye Nyaunu are refusing to learn from the experiences of Victor Smith, Major Boakye Djan, PV Obeng, Kojo Tsikata, Chris Atim, Dr. Hannah Bissiw, Ashiboe Mensah and the rest. These people went through thick and thin with the Rawlingses only to be dumped later. Abraham Lincoln once said you can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time. Now that the battle lines are drawn, the NDC as the ruling party must gird its loins for a keen battle ahead. The NDC must now know the Rawlingses are not on their side so they must tackle the issues head on, after all, all die be die.

BY: JUSTICE MINGLE, A JOURNALIST.