Audio Attachment:Listen to Felix Kwakye-Ofosu |
A Member of the Communications Team of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Felix Kwakye-Ofosu, believes the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is having difficulty in choosing a running mate to partner their flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo in next year�s general elections because of how ethnocentric the party is.
According to him, besides the tag of an Akan party dangling around the neck of the NPP like a hangman�s noose, what seems to have compounded the problem is the infamous �yen akan fo� statement made by the party�s flagbearer a couple of months ago.
The floodgates for the scramble for the running mate position were opened in the last week of the month of November when a section of the media broached it once more, including it on the party�s agenda even as Nana Addo was on a listening tour in the Upper East and West Regions.
Speaking as a panelist on Radio Gold�s Alhaji and Alhaji programme, Kwakye-Ofosu said the NPP choose a leader who was �deficient� and unfortunately selected a �political neophyte� as his running mate in the last general elections.
�The NPP, unfortunately in 2008 chose a candidate who with all respect to him�brought very very little to the campaign. You see Nana Akufo Addo is deficient in many, many ways; some people think he is charismatic but I disagree� and so he needed somebody who would bring a lot to the campaign but unfortunately they went in for Dr. Bawumia who at the time was a political neophyte�,� he said.
The grapevine has it that Nana Akufo-Addo may nominate his 2012 Vice Presidential Candidate much sooner than anticipated with four names dropping off the lips of insiders.
The four names are MND Jawula, Lepowura of the Kujolobito Gate of Lepo-Kpembe in the Northern Region, Ambrose Derry, Deputy Minority Leader and MP for Lawra/Nandom, Alhassan Haruna, Deputy Managing Director of Metro TV and Mahamudu Bawumia, the 2008 running mate of Nana Addo. What is yet to be established is how any of the four names resonates with the larger national electorate.
But Felix maintains none of the afore-mentioned names is comparable to the current Vice President, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama.
He accused the NPP of always behaving like a tribal organization, hence the difficulty in choosing a running mate, much unlike the NDC.
�The problem that the NPP has; why this talk of north/south divide has come up is that inherently that party has behaved like a tribal organization�they believe that it is an Akan party. Their flagbearer has publicly stated �yen akan fo) die��the default thinking of the NPP is that it is an Akan party�and that is why the issue of northerner and southerners; Christians and Muslims comes up�The NDC encourages broad participation by everybody we don�t set out to exclude any class of persons irrespective of the person�s background or status so naturally people feel a sense of belonging in the NDC. We don�t need to select anybody just to reflect balance in our party. We only need to select somebody who will complement the efforts of the flagbearer. I don�t think all these persons measure up to John Mahama and cannot bring the same things that Honorable Mahama brought�,� Felix Kwakye-Ofosu said.
Source: Rebecca Addo Tetteh/Peacefmonline.com
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