Rawlings: NDC has blown the chance to win 2012 elections

The founder of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Jerry John Rawlings, has reiterated his worry with the leadership style of sitting President John Evans Atta Mills and party executives, which he believes will adversely affect the party’s fortunes during the elections.

Meeting with a 20-member delegation of chiefs and traditional leaders from the Volta Region on Tuesday at his Ridge Residence, ex-President Rawlings expressed concerns that the values and principles on which the NDC was founded have been ignored.

He feels the Mills-led administration had lost a better opportunity come the December elections to retain power.

Speaking to journalists moments after the four-hour meeting with the chiefs, Kofi Adams, the spokesperson for the Rawlingses, told journalists in the presence of the former president that: “It was his [Rawlings] wish that the NDC would win the elections but, the leadership, as he put it, at the government executive level and party level, have completely thrown away that chance. He bore no grudge against anybody but we’ve kind of abandoned the values.”

Rawlings, who opted to speak only through Mr. Adams, remarked: “They [NDC] have lost a lot of morale high grounds.”

The crunch meeting with the chiefs and queen mothers - Royals for Peace and Development - from the Volta region was aimed at resolving the strained relationship between the Rawlingses and sitting President Mills.

His wife, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, as well as Lower Manya Krobo MP, Michael Teye Nyaunu, Mr. Kofi Adams, Mr. Josiah Aryeh, Madam Sylvia Awornu, General Secretary of the 31st December Women's Movement sat in the four-hour long meeting.

The spokesperson of the group, Togbe Hotormaho Amedzake III told Citifmonline.com: “Our motive of coming here is to visit Chairman Rawlings and his wife and his household and find out how they are faring.

“Secondly, there is this issue of bad blood between him and some of his working colleagues, whether now or former and so we want to find out from him to what extent has this gotten to so that we can inform ourselves and know the way forward.”



By Kent Mensah/Citifmonline.com/Ghana