-After Long-Drawn Cold War
The first daughter of Jerry Rawlings, late founder of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr. Zanetor Agyemang-Rawlings, has urged her father’s party to end its cold war of his widow, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings who had seceded to form her own party.
At the first anniversary commemorating the death of the former President on Friday, 12 November, Dr. Zanetor who is also the MP for Korley Klottey, said Mrs. Rawlings who has vowed never to return to the party is still an integral part of the NDC.
It is unclear what will happen to the National Democratic Party (NDP) which Mrs. Konadu Rawlings formed after she was humiliated by the NDC during the flagbearership race for the NDC some 10 years ago.
She was thoroughly walloped by the then-incumbent late John Evans Atta, who swept almost all the votes at the presidential congress of the then ruling NDC.
“I want to use this opportunity to ask that as we remember the old man who we never expected to pass when he did, let’s make amends. Let us approach those we have wronged,” Dr. Zenator pleaded for her mother.
“Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings is an integral part of the party. Let us do all we can to bring her back. In every family there is conflict, but there are also elders who will mediate the conflict. We are calling on our elders, this is the time. We don’t know what tomorrow holds, but if we want victory to rescue the people of Ghana from their current situation, let us do what we have to do.”
Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings has been estranged from the NDC since 2012 when she resigned her membership and formed the National Democratic Party (NDP).
After her defeat and eventual formulation of the NDP, the party became the most antagonistic of the NDC.
Issues leading to Nana Konadu abandoning ship and starting NDP had started with the former First Lady and her husband engaging in a campaign of criticism against the Mills government.
When the NDC went to congress in 2011 to select its flagbearer, the Mills loyalists in government then, reportedly “Mafiaed” the Rawlingses with the resounding defeat of Konadu who was nursing a strong ambition to lead the party that she and her husband formed after years of dictatorship.
Former Local Government Minister, Prof. Kwamina Ahwoi has revealed the rift between the Rawlingses and their party, the NDC had started when Mills decided not to prosecute thieving, corrupt appointees of the erstwhile John Kufuor’s administration.
He reveals that upon assuming power, the Mills government had compiled a dossier of corrupt former officials and presented it to the late former President Rawlings for his perusal. Rawlings had also been told that the government would announce the indictments and intended prosecutions on a prime news bulletin.
Meanwhile, renowned Ghanaian Pollster, Ben Epshon, has said that it will be the undoing of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) if it brings back the widow of late party Founder, Jerry John Rawlings, into the party.
According to him, such a move would be a miscalculation for a number of reasons, including the fact that Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings has no useful political cachet to offer the NDC.