Mr. Rawlings believes the NDC started losing the 2012 general elections and power within the very first week the party returned to power because of the actions and inactions of President Mills and members of his administration since surveys had indicated that the government was unpopular.
Mr Rawlings however said he thought Prof. Mills and his administration would have made amends but they sat idle and watched as things degenerated from bad to worse each passing day, finally giving up power eight months ago, adding that with Mills in the driving seat, he could not guarantee victory for the party.
‘We finally lost 2012 eight months back. So until we change the gear and the driver, and I say this without malice and any disrespect to the Prof., but I guess we all have our limitations… The time has come when the change must take place to enable us to rescue this country,” he said amidst thunderous applause from the crowd, at the Accra International Conference Centre during the launch of his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings’s campaign bid to lead the NDC.
He however preferred to reserve his energy for the celebration of June 4th when he would probably open the can of worms about things happening in government since he assured his fans of more revelations on that day.
The venue for the 2012 flagbearership campaign launch was filled-to-capacity amidst drumming and singing from support groups.
Much as he wanted his wife to be the attention- and make the headlines for the day since the occasion was meant for her- Mr Rawlings eventually ended up stealing the show when he mounted the podium to give what he described as a ‘brief speech.’
Loss of Confidence
It was in the course of making that ‘brief speech’, when he virtually gave up any hopes in the 2012 general elections because he had lost confidence in President Mills, a man he personally plucked from political obscurity.
According to him, when Mills and his men realised how the government had become unpopular, they tried to frustrate the processes leading to the election of the party’s flagbearer and kept postponing the date till now.
‘The July Congress should have taken place towards the end of last year but when they did their research, they discovered that this lady (pointing to his wife) was going to beat them.
That this lady’s score was going to be as high as 82 percent because at that time, they had simply concentrated on giving positions, with appointments to Boards of various institutions and contracts, to chairpersons and regional executives forgetting that there were thousands of delegates and party members around.
“So they decided to push the Congress to March of this year (2011) so they could do more research but the votes had fallen by 76 percent so they decided to push it to July. They cannot go beyond that because it’s embarrassing to them and all of us.”
Even now that the scale has slightly tilted, with Konadu still likely to beat Mills by 76 percent, Mr Rawlings said despite all that, Mills and his cohort could not derail the integrity of the NDC by giving out money and other things in exchange for votes to stay in office.
‘You may win (in Sunyani Congress) but you will go and lose the national election. Let us wake up to the reality on the ground. This reality is on the ground and anybody knows it. If any elections were conducted today, we all know our fate. Let’s stop being selfish and do what we must do. I am not saying it out of spite because I had supported my friend when all the people around him deserted him.”
Mr Rawlings admitted that women had often been relegated to the background in spite of their significant roles and contributions to society.
He said they were even denied the means of dealing with complex situations in society.
‘Changes are coming and women will have to begin to rise to assume the appropriate authority that must go with the burdens and responsibilities they’ve been carrying from generations to generations,’ he said, pointing at his wife amidst applause from the crowd.
Konadu
When Mrs Rawlings took her turn, she urged all individuals and group of persons who would be entrusted with the power of electing the flagbearer as delegates not to trade their conscience and convictions for money and fleeting desires since in her opinion ‘a true-blooded NDC leadership does not buy support, No! We don’t buy support. A true-blooded NDC leadership does not buy votes. We don’t buy votes, we work towards the votes. Indeed we do not buy delegates.’
According to her, ‘This tendency is destroying the spirit and tenets of the NDC and it is a shame.’
Furthermore, Mrs Rawlings indicated that ‘there is now a politics of threats. A politics of fear, a politics of financial influence being imposed on our party’, urging the true members of the NDC, ‘Let us work to remove the politics of vindictiveness, let us work to remove the politics of arrogance that is being introduced into our party and restore hope, trust and respect to our party and the people of Ghana.’ Continued…
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