A group of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Grassroots Consolidation, Upper East Chapter, has said the party is in crisis and for it to be reorganised to contest in the 2020 general elections, a new presidential candidate is needed and not former President John Dramani Mahama.
At a news briefing in Bolgatanga on Thursday, the group said: “The 2020 election will be hard. Despite its bad performance, many Ghanaian voters will want to give NPP [New Patriotic Party] a second term especially as many voters say that they can no longer tell the difference between NDC and NPP. That work is hard. It cannot be led by the same team that failed us so badly in the 2016 election.”
Spokesperson of the group, Coleman Mambisi, told journalists the NDC must transform to be able to win the 2020 elections stressing: That work is hard. It cannot be led by the same team that failed in 2016.”
“In 2020, we cannot [say] NDC did badly, but NPP did worse” and expect votes. We must offer Ghanaians hope. If we cannot offer hope, then we are all facing great national disaster. To offer hope, we must reorganize the NDC and show the public a new direction they can trust.
So, much as we love our brother and former leader, we cannot support his comeback. NDC needs new faces at NEC [National Executive Committee] and as flagbearer. Everybody in NDC knows this but many are keeping silent because they believe that they can exploit our former leader’s resources for themselves.”
Having chastised the current leadership of the NDC for not accounting to the party for their stewardship after the 2016 elections, the group stated that they needed leaders who were there in the trenches in the PNDC period, those who shaped the original NDC and its founding values, leaders who worked with party organisers and the grassroots constantly for decades and who had always kept their doors open for grassroots and not just those who remembered them during election time.
They, therefore, contended that the right presidential material to lead the NDC into the 2020 elections was former presidential hopeful, Augustus Goosie Tanoh.
According to them, Mr. Goosie fought for ordinary party members even when stalwarts in the party had become power drunk.
The group further claimed Mr. Goosie later left the NDC when the leadership at the time rejected demands for reforms. He, however, returned to the NDC because later former President Atta Mills too saw that the NDC had lost its way and asked him to help drive reforms.
Mr. Mambisi, said since his return to the party, Mr. Goosie has been quietly organizing the party at the grassroots level and avoided the limelight. “This is the kind of person NDC and Ghana need in leadership.” He stressed.
Unfortunately, Goosie has not declared his intension to run and time is running out. We are therefore calling for Mr. Goosie to heed [to] our call and declare. He will find an army of organisers and supporters ready to carry him forward.” The group declared.
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1FM|Ghana
