Nana Konadu dancing with her supporters yesterday wearing ‘Still be BOLD’ 2012 T-Shirts
The much-anticipated press conference by Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings’s campaign team finally came off yesterday but left members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) wondering what the Rawlingses are really up to.
Supporters of incumbent President John Evans Atta Mills and members of his campaign team have been pushing for unity talks with the Rawlingses but the press conference failed to touch on it.
Members of the Konadu campaign team, led by its Co-ordinator, Berrick Namburr, did not address the next line of action except to catalogue electoral malpractices they claimed characterized the Sunyani congress.
Obviously aware of the fact that members of the media would ask questions, organizers of the event did not allow questions from the media.
Konadu, who is the wife of the party’s founder and former President, Jerry Rawlings, arrived at the event venue to meet an enthusiastic crowd amidst drumming and dancing.
An excited Nana Konadu joined her supporters in dancing for almost five minutes, using the occasion to thank the ninety or so individuals who in spite of alleged intimidation and vote-buying mustered the courage and came out ‘bold’ to vote for her.
But her Campaign Manager and Member of Parliament for Lower Manya, Michael Teye Nyaunu, whose initials have earned him the nickname ‘MTN’, gave the teeming supporters something to cheer about when he said “we would be coming out in phases and batches; this is but the first batch. We would come out again,” leaving members of the NDC guessing what the Rawlingses were up to.
Some of the ‘Still be BOLD’ 2012 T-Shirts
According to the Konadu campaign team, the NDC Electoral Committee was composed to achieve a lopsided view point.
“The whole process was orchestrated and skewed in a way that prevented the contest from being free and fair…I just cannot comprehend…In the last two days, we’ve received direct reports from well over 200 delegates who were not granted accreditation to enter the Congress grounds and thus not allowed to exercise their franchise to vote…The adoption of tactics alien to the NDC, which include the deliberate impoverishment of the people, was calculated to make them vulnerable and susceptible to manipulation…”
He accused government and the security agencies for employing intimidating tactics and instilling fear in the delegates.
“There was a calculated plan of intimidation, not only from government officials, but by an unnecessarily high presence of heavily-armed security personnel all over the inner and outer perimeter of the Congress grounds and indeed throughout the Sunyani metropolis.
Since the inception of the NDC, our party has recognised that our strength is our people.
“Yet during this Congress, we denied entry to our party faithful to the Congress grounds.
What image do we project to the nation and to the world when we lock the strength of our party outside? Why should we do this? It was unfortunate that our party faithful, who are the backbone of the NDC, were denied the opportunity to participate in this historic occasion”, the campaign team said.
They also complained about the initial attempt by the party’s Electoral Committee to deliberately exclude the Electoral Commission from conducting the elections.
Even though they managed to foil the attempt with a threat of initiating a legal action against the NDC, Konadu’s Campaign Coordinator said, that act compromised the integrity of the process leading to congress, insisting, “The input and process having been tainted, the outcome is logically bound to be tainted.”
“Throughout the process, it was clear that delegates were being coerced by inducements, the misuse of the fear factor and threats to vote in a particular direction,” he noted, stressing, “It is hard to comprehend.”
Though Konadu’s campaign team claimed the President’s team had already dismissed the charge of the fear factor, he said those who sat in the stands and participated in the process (delegates and agents) could attest to the fact.
Mr. Namburr said, “In the last two days, we’ve received direct reports from well over 200 delegates who were not granted accreditation to enter the Congress grounds and thus not allowed to exercise their franchise to vote.”
Konadu and members of her campaign team however pledged an unalloyed commitment to continue to champion the cause of the party’s foot-soldiers in whatever shape or form it would take.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
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