Don’t air your dirty laundry

Ayariga Jabs NPP

The 2012 presidential candidate for the People’s National Convention, (PNC) Hassan Ayariga, has criticized the leadership of the New Patriotic Party,(NPP)  for the highly publicized disunity and disconnect within the party, after the verdict of the supreme court.

 

Various leading members of the NPP have expressed conflicting views on whether Nana Addo Akufo Addo should be retained for the 2016 presidential elections.

 

The NPP flagbearer himself has requested a break to decide on which path to take, with regard to his political career.

 

However, Mr. Ayariga has said the internal wrangling of the party must be dealt with privately rather than publicly.

 

He said “I think there is an internal problem within the NPP and they need to sit down to make the right decisions. Public discussions will not bring change to the party. We have a duty to this country and that is to maintain peace”.

 

Mr. Ayariga said it was time to move on from the election petition saga and focus on pertinent issues that affect the country.

 

 He appealed to the media to shift its attention to developmental issues that could affect some change.

 

“Let us not play politics with our country. We must be seen to promote issue that will seek out solutions.  The government should be seen to work for the interest of the citizens; employ competent people not just because they may be members of the one political party or the other,” he added.

Source: Ghana | RadioXYZonline.com

So, Afari Gyan resigns and the NPP benefits?

By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor

Friends, at this juncture in our national politics, the chips have fallen in place, but the defeated NPP cabal doesn’t seem to know that reality and is still up and about, raising dust for nothing.

We have heard all the ugly noise that has characterized their dissension against the Supreme Court’s ruling. Unfortunately for them, there is no magic or witchery that can overturn what has been electorally and legally (not to say constitutionally) mandated against their aspirations. Their horses ran out of their stables long ago, and all that they are doing now is just a pointless but remarkable confirmation of their dejection.

Oh, how I wish they would look into their political lives to know that when the Ghanaian electorate rejected them at Election 2008 and repeated it at 2012, they did so with a clean conscience, having examined issues conscientiously to know who would best serve their purposes as the President. They went for the late Atta Mills at Election 2008 and John Dramani Mahama at Election 2012, not William Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo (what a mouthful of a name?) on both occasions because Akufo-Addo is not what Mills or Mahama is.  What is difficult about this plain fact to not understand?

The majority that went for President Mahama did so because of what they saw in him; and they haven’t shifted in any way to suggest that they regretted voting for him. I recall with some measured trepidation what some people said after Election 2008 to suggest that they regretted voting for ex-President Mills, apparently because they felt let down by goings-on. Although that expression of regret belongs to history, it still has its relevance if juxtaposed with the fate of President Mahama.

I haven’t heard any voter regret rooting for him; and he is well ensconced in the groove to serve his full four-year tenure and brace up for Election 2016. The Supreme Court has sealed it all for him and we will do everything to ensure that he survives the whirligig of the NPP’s negative politics. We have it as our bounden duty to lend him or unflinching support because he is the fount of authority in Ghana. Hail him, then!!

Within this context,  I am more than appalled by the kind of dirty politics that the NPP people have been doing all this while, especially after being humiliated at Election 2012 and told the plain truth by the Supreme Court on August 29. The ruling against them reinforces John Mahama’s legitimacy which they should have come to terms with by now had they risen above the “book politics” that they have been doing all this while and making themselves unappealing in consequence.

I am tempted to wonder sometimes why ex-President Kufuor can’t bring his experiences to bear on what is happening in his party, having himself outgrown all the negative things that he encountered from within to win the 2000 elections and be re-elected in 2004 to serve for 8 years. It’s not to suggest anything other than the fact that his ability to return the Danquah-Busia political family to glory after 30 years in the political wilderness owed much to factors hinging on personal characteristics and the existing political situation in the country under ex-President Rawlings. Kufuor succeeded; not so?

Truth be told, what Kufuor had to make him win the hearts of the electorate, Akufo-Addo lacks. Indeed, when Kufuor won narrowly the first round of Election 2000, there were many factors to give him a head-start advantage over ex-President Mills. No intention to revisit that aspect of our history, but suffice it to say that Kufuor’s ability to win the second round is remarkable.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Akufo-Addo who won the first round of Election 2008 only to tumble down into something else in the run-off. His whining and vain, desperate moves to use the judiciary (with the misguidance of Atta Akyea) didn’t yield anything beneficial because Kufuor was there as the voice of reason to cut it short. Kufuor preferred truth (in terms of happenings at the polls) to mere technicalities at the court or treachery. He proved to Akufo-Addo that elections are won at the polls.

Did Akufo-Addo learn any lesson to guide him for Election 2012? Your guess is as good as mine. He didn’t and will not if he stands again at Election 2016.

At this point, then, isn’t it clear that the NPP people who are out creating confusion here and there and seeking needless global attention are the architects of their own doom? Will they even know this truth?

To cite a simple instance to support this claim (especially because of their myopic “book politics”), let me refer to the current craze among them: demanding that Dr. Afari Gyan (Chair of the EC) should resign. What do they think the resignation of Dr. Afari Gyan will offer them? Put their defeated and dejected Akufo-Addo in office? Hahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa.

Here is the exact instance of their confusion as reported in the news:

“The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has backed calls for the Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan to resign his position.

The NPP says the EC boss has "lost credibility" and not worthy to preside over the 2016 general elections after his testimony in court during the hearing of the dismissed President Election Petition.

The Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG) in a statement issued in Accra Tuesday called for the immediate resignation of Dr. Afari-Gyan.

The group claims his continuous stay in office after his admission that there were flaws in the 2012 election in court will be inimical to Ghana’s electoral process.

The call comes after the EC has requested political parties to submit proposal for reforms in the country’s electoral system.

However, speaking on Citinews, General Secretary of the party, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie said the call for Afari-Gyan’s resignation is long overdue.

“We of the NPP are firmly convinced that Afari-Gyan’s position is untenable; he has lost credibility and public confidence so he must go,” he stressed. (See http://politics.myjoyonline.com/pages/news/201309/112964.php)

And much much more more of such inanity. But so much of this drivel. Now, a good question for this myopic Owusu Afriyie: Who appoints the Electoral Commissioner? The NPP or the President, as mandated by the Constitution? And if Afari Gyan heeds the NPP’s call to resign, how will that redound to the NPP’s political fate? To claim some useless bragging rights that he did so because they mounted pressure on him? To what end to boost the NPP’s chances for Election 2016? How infantile!!

What will the resignation of Afari Gyan offer the NPP to suggest that it will have a brighter future than what has already jolted it? Are they fighting him because he is the only person to work against their interest in elections? One Afari Gyan here, another one there. Will there now be looking for all the Afari Gyans to deal with? Fighting every windmill they construct on the political terrain? What madness!

You see, the more these inexperienced but arrogant NPP politicians open their mouths to talk about issues that they know little about, the more they give me the opportunity to poke them on the rib cage. They don’t really know how to do politics and will continue to be at the receiving end.

The problem that we may glean out of this “TAKASHI POLITICS” is that which relates to the unfettered powers granted the President by the Constitution in the appointment of public officials. Unless the NPP’s agitation is meant to change the Constitutional mandate for the President not to be the sole appointing authority of the Electoral Commissioner and others whose role is crucial to the survival of our democracy, all that is happening now is mere hogwash.

It is futile and won’t advance the NPP’s cause. At best, it comes across as the last strokes of party functionaries suffering in the throes of political defeat. The earlier to come to terms with their sorry state, the better it will be for them to know how to re-strategize and prepare for future elections.

I am more than persuaded to believe at this point that what they have done so far is counter-productive and won’t help them re-define themselves as politicians genuinely interested in grabbing political power in this 21^st century. They are already an endangered species and need better strategies to remain in contention. Can they, for once, give us a break?

I shall return…

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Otchere Darko typifies the lazy thinking going on in the NPP

By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor

Folks, it is not often that I react to utterances made by some elements in the NPP. For what they are to me, they don't really turn my crank to warrant my wasting my breath on them. One such element is Gabby Asare Otchere Darko, the so-called Executive Director of the Danquah Institute. 

All this while that he has been in the news, he hasn’t come across to me as a politician of merit or a lawyer of any special designation. He is a noise-maker who is basking in nothing but the faded glory of the Danquah-Busia tradition. I don't really see anything worthwhile coming from him but what he has put out today does turn my crank, and I want to react to it to confirm my poor opinion of him and those behind the scene pushing him to display so much inanity in national politics.

After making a mockery of himself by describing the Supreme Court judgement against his uncle (Akufo-Addo) as “corrupt” (or even after bad-mouthing the judges and challenging them to deal with him if they could), he is out in the news with something totally weird.

He says that the Supreme ruled 5:4 in favour of Akufo-Addo and that Justice Atuguba read the wrong judgement to confirm the legitimacy of President Mahama's victory at Election 2012.

In a six-page statement copied to Myjoyonline.com, Otchere-Darko suggested that what the Supreme Court did was "as if the Court’s main duty was to uphold the presidency of John Mahama rather than to uphold the Constitution of the Republic".

"My view, however, is that the decision, in both fact and law, is a 5:4 majority that John Mahama was not validly elected. This is because five justices, Julius Ansah, Rose Owusu, Jones Dotse, Anin Yeboah, and Baffoe Bonnie, all held that the irregularities found were enough to affect the results and that there should be a second election but in the affected areas. Significantly, they were willing to uphold the law but without totally disenfranchising the voters affected."

Therefore, the Danquah Institute will on Monday, September 16, 2013, in partnership with other civil society groups hold a symposium at the British Council for jurists and other legal and statistics experts to critique the decision of the Supreme Court in the presidential election petition.

(See: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=285138)

For purposes of emphasis and reiteration, I reproduce salient parts of Otchere Darko’s full statement, published by Myjoyonline and Ghanaweb.com:

the court mistakenly read out a reversed judgment;

after a careful study of the 588 page-long ruling on the 2012 presidential election petition, five of the judges agreed with the petitioners' case as against four for the first respondent, John Dramani Mahama.

MY COMMENTS

If this is not madness of a new kind in political thinking, then, I don't know what else qualifies as such.

We all heard the verdict read in an open court by Justice William Atuguba, president of the nine panel Supreme Court judges, which was:

Duplicate serial numbers of pink sheets: 9–0 [UNANIMOUSLY DISMISSED];

Duplicate Polling Station Codes &Names: 9–0 [UNANIMOUSLY DISMISSED]’

Unknown Polling Stations: 9–0 [UNANIMOUSLY DISMISSED];

Voting without biometric verification: 5–4 [MAJORITY DISMISSED];

Over voting: 5–4 [MAJORITY DISMISSED];

Non-signing of Pink Sheets by POs 5–4 [MAJORITY DISMISSED]

Where, in this ruling is any confirmation that the verdict was 5:4 in Akufo-Addo’s favour for Otchere Darko to make this ugly noise about?

Only a demented person will go this way. I hesitate to blame him because he is only manifesting the morbid frustration that has gripped his political camp. But he is carrying that frustration to dizzying heights and will soon come face-to-face with the Fate that he has been tempting all this while.

 And for him to suggest that the opinion of those NPP judges on the panel that the elections be re-run in the areas that they thought the so-called irregularities occurred is enough confirmation of his claim is not only bizarre but is shoddy thinking.

Were the judges given pink sheets from all the 26,002 polling stations for them to see the big picture to be able to form any reliable opinion on what transpired as a way of record-keeping?

Or, how did the NPP judges determine that irregularities occurred at all and for which the elections should be re-run in those areas? How did they know which of the candidates the voters voted for or against to determine that a re-run be done?

Again, we have all read the judges' opinions and can tell outright why they unanimously dismissed most of the petitioners' allegations and defeated the rest by a majority decision. Thus, for Otchere Darko to cherry-pick areas that the NPP judges settled on to paint this picture clearly explains why he couldn't even pass his law qualifying exams but was pushed through by faceless characters at the Ghana Law School.

Let these NPP town-criers know that in their own petition, they didn't call for any re-run of the elections. It couldn't, therefore, be tenable for them to go that way as a stop-gap measure.

If they were wise enough to know that elections are won or lost on the basis of ballot basis, they would have asked for recounting of the ballots instead of settling on pink sheets.

That is why I find this part of Otchere Darko’s statement to be particularly ridiculous: “the Danquah Institute will on Monday, September 16, 2013, in partnership with other civil society groups hold a symposium at the British Council for jurists and other legal and statistics experts to critique the decision of the Supreme Court in the presidential election petition.”

Why should they waste time, energy, and resources to CRITIQUE the Supreme Court’s judgement instead of choosing the obvious and reasonable course of action to seek review? If they think that they stand on a strong legal foundation to overturn the Court’s judgement, why won’t they go for a review instead of seeking to critique it?

And by critiquing the Court’s judgement, what do they hope to achieve? That the critique will lead to a reversal of Akufo-Addo’s fate? How mentally and intellectually lazy can’t Otchere Darko and those supporting him be?

Thanks to Kwame Pianin’s wise crack, we know what mental and intellectual laziness can lead to, especially when any fool bears a party’s flag to the elections!!

I don't want to be overly harsh but suffice it for me to say that Otchere Darko clearly demonstrates and confirms the lazy thinking going on in the NPP. And this kind of lazy thinking won’t win political power.

Let these idle hands assemble at the British Council Hall to waste their breath. If they are bold enough to fight the Supreme Court, why don't they go for a review? Do they know why Philip Addison, their lead counsel, has chosen silence as his weapon for reacting to the Supreme Court’s judgement? He knows better than they do!!

Of course, no matter how long these NPP people sustain their Atuguba-loathing or condemnation of the Supreme Court’s verdict, nothing will change. What is written is written. All this noise-making is part of the grand exit strategy to save Akufo-Addo’s skin. Eventually the dust will settle to reveal to these noise makers how mindless they have been all along. Then, they will barely have time to prepare for Election 2016. Consequently, filing another election petition will be their lot!

I shall return…

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