<<Print>>

Insight newspaper editor, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. says no one can expect the Rawlingses to return to the campaign trail of the ruling National Democratic Congress after they have virtually destroyed it. It will therefore be a waste of anybody�s time who tries to woo them back to the party expecting Mr. and Mrs Rawlings to campaign for President Mills in the 2012 general elections. Kwesi Pratt spoke on Radio Gold�s Alhaji and Alhaji programme, and said the two-and-half-year rule of the Mills administration has had its key opposition from within the party - from the camp of former first lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, rather than the opposition New Patriotic Party. He also said there was nothing wrong if somebody contests the sitting president for the party�s presidential candidature, but what was out of place and had become a problem was the character of the campaign itself. �It has been reduced to a campaign of insults, slander and vilification. A campaign in which members of the National Democratic Congress are proclaiming publicly that over the last two-and-half years, nothing has happened; that over the last two-and-half years, the country has been in reverse; that indeed the team in government is nothing but Team B, that the President himself was asleep on the job��. Kwesi Pratt said given developments within the party, the only way to settle the serious contestations is to go for congress, pointing out that there are divided forces within the ruling party as to what to do with the Rawlingses. One school of thought, he said, holds that Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings should not contest the president at all because her doing so will divide the party � an opinion he disagrees with; and others who think Nana Konadu will suffer a humiliating defeat at the NDC Congress to select a flagbearer but also believe she must suffer that humiliation so at the end of the day, concessions would be made to woo the Rawlingses and to beg them to return to the campaign. �There is another group, which perhaps rightly, says that look, given all that has happened, if we went to congress and Nana Konadu was given a humiliating defeat, even if the Rawlingses agree to campaign for the party their campaign will be ineffective, and I am inclined to agree with that group. �Listen to what the Rawlingses have said about this administration� Do you think that in 2012, because of what they have said and the weight of what they have said, they will be in a position to campaign for a Mills administration, a Mills candidature? Certainly not possible. �Why, would President Mills have gained his sight by a miracle by 2012? They are the people who are saying that the man is blind, he can�t function. So if he is blind today and cannot function and so on, by what calculation and so on can they come and tell us that by 2012, his eyes will be ok and be perfect and will be able to function? They are the people who are telling us that for the past two-and-half years, this country has been in reverse. What are they going to say in 2012? � So look, expecting the Rawlingses to campaign for President Mills in 2012, is like expecting them to lick back their own sputum, and I don�t think that that is going to happen so people should not waste their time and not waste anybody�s time thinking that the Rawlingses are going to be on the bandwagon, they are going to campaign for President Mills and that indeed their campaign is so crucial. They have already done irreparable damage and that damage cannot be corrected without denting their own credibility and I do not think that they have any interest in denting their own image.� Kwesi Pratt said while he saw nothing wrong in the visit by members of the NDC to its founder, J.J. Rawlings to discuss the interest of the party, he found it unacceptable, disgusting and an affront to womanhood that anyone would attempt to persuade Rawlings to impress upon his wife, Nana Konadu Rawlings to stand down from contesting President Mills. He said it is not the duty of husbands to decide the careers of their wives.