Outgoing General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has said that his decision to run for the party’s chairmanship position will not bring any division in the party, as has been asserted in some quarters.
According to him, never in the history of the party has a free and fair competition for national executive positions led to a division amongst its members.
Speaking in a Radio Gold interview which was monitored by GhanaWeb, Asiedu Nketia added that the only times where there has been some commotion in the party was when some leaders wanted to impose the party’s leadership.
“… those saying that people contesting in the chairmanship position or the General Secretary position will lead to trouble are not being factual. Nothing like that will happen, the history of the party does not bare them out.
“There have been only two occasions where we have had divisions in the party after congress. The first one was an attempt to gag everybody else for the leaders to take decisions for the party, during the Swedru declaration where President Rawlings declared that Prof Mills should be the flagbearer of the party after him. Even parliamentary candidates were imposed and this led to some group in the party forming their own party (the Reform Party). This made us lose the 2000 Elections.
“The second time was in 2005 when I was part of the national executives. During that time the National Chairman of the party before the congress wanted his own set of executive and the party insisted there should be an election at the congress. Again, after congress there was a split which led to the party losing in the general elections,” he said in Twi.
He reiterated that the party has never lost an election when it allowed people to freely contest in its internal election, citing the 2008 and 2012 election victories as examples.
Meanwhile, a former National Organizer of the NDC, Yaw Boateng Gyan, has impressed on the Council of Elders of his party to halt a possible contest between the General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, and the National Chairman, Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo.
In his view, the contest between the two will sharply divide the party ahead of the crucial 2024 elections.
He argued that the party could not afford to allow cracks between the two because they both command a huge following in the party.
“We will need the two in the party going into the 2024 elections, and just as we did for the first time in 1992 in Cape Coast, where the party elected national officers based on consensus, the same can be done with the two,” he said.
