The political temperature in the country has been at an all-time high in the past few weeks, with the two main parties engaged in one form of activity or the other.
The largest opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), was in action last weekend trying their expanded Electoral College on parliamentary aspirants. The exercise was a success, attracting a cross-party commendation.
Their main opponents, the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), inched closer to their ultimate goal of choosing a flag-bearer for the 2012 polls when the spouse of ex-President Rawlings made good her intention of contesting the President by picking nomination forms at the party headquarters.
The unusualness of the challenge, coming when the incumbent is but only half way into his first term in office, has thrown the party into a state of political convulsion, with the dissenting groups breaking into a Mills and Konadu segment.
Now the mainstream NDC is mired in a struggle to ward off the challenge posed by the Rawlingses.
No sooner had the dust generated by the Nana Konadu form-picking died down than President Mills’s supporters from across the country stormed the NDC headquarters to render moral support to their man the following day.
If President Mills’s minders sought to deal a psychological blow to their opponents in the Konadu camp, they got it in the numbers they were able to muster to bolster the seriousness of his 2012 project.
Punches are being traded by the opposing camps and it would be insulting to the intelligence of Ghanaians for image managers to pretend that nothing is happening.
Such pretentious reactions cannot remedy the anomalous situation as we see it.
Former President Rawlings has not minced words about what he seeks to do in the coming days. Underestimating such a veiled threat is too dangerous for the NDC in particular and the political milieu in general, as Rawlings seeks the jugular of the President.
Much as we consider the development in the NDC as an internal disagreement, we know that its resonance across the country and the negativity it could have on the governance is not in doubt.
The unfolding development, as each camp seeks to garner more support for its side, would have been another dimension of democracy. But with the President pushed to the wall by unprecedented pressure from within his political grouping, the anomaly cannot be pushed under the carpet as some seek to do.
Ex-President Rawlings would have to take another look at the realities of contemporary Ghanaian history, as relatively younger politicians want him confined to the backburner of local politics. Many years ago, such could not have happened as he himself noted during one of his ranting when he remarked rhetorically “who born dog?”
Let not the development impede the work of the President as we wait for the June 4 ranting promised by Mr. Rawlings. It should pass for a “dog fight dog” situation with no blood oozing. | | | | |
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