His resignation did not come as a surprise to many people because they saw it coming. But the political doomsday prophets are excited about his exit from the Elephant family as they just cannot stop preaching their doomsday prophecies. Yes, the resignation of Hon. Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, aka Chief Alan, is what I refer to.
Chief Alan gave all manner of reasons for his decision to leave the Elephant fraternity. Whether valid or not, I’m very convinced that contesting the 2024 as an independent candidate is tantamount to Alan burying himself alive. Aside generating discussions and political razzmatazz in the mainstream and social media, Alan’s candidature in 2024 will bring him nothing but disgrace.
His political symbol, the Butterfly, brings to mind the story of how the Tsetse fly worried the Elephant in our primary story book. When I reminded a leading member of the Elephant about the primary book story in a telephone conversation, he laughed it off and said he was glad ‘Sasso’ Spray was a fast killer of both crawling and flying insects, including ‘Alan’s Butterfly’.
Any political analyst worth his salt can easily tell that Chief Alan’s withdrawal from the Elephant’s flagbearership contest was because of his abysmal showing in the super delegates’ election. Almost everyone had expected Chief Alan to secure the second position in the super delegates’ election.
Hon. Ken Agyapong beating him for the second position made Chief Alan realise that he was fighting a losing battle. And the best way to save himself from the impending shame was to smartly resign from the party and go solo.
Chief Alan’s past resignation in 2007 made the situation somewhat complex. Back then, he was widely expected to be the flag-bearer, but was outperformed by then Candidate Nana Dee. His popularity within the party has since continued to dwindle. His poor showing in subsequent flagbearership elections in 2010 and 2014, 19% and 4% respectively, proved that fact. It was thus very laughable to hear him and his cheerleaders chanting the ‘aduru meso’ slogan.
I ask those predicting doom and gloom for the Elephant; have you so soon forgotten about Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobby’s United Ghana Movement (UGM), Nana Konadu’s National Democratic Party (NDP), Goosie Tanor’s National Refrom Party (NRP), and Hassan Ayariga’s All People’s Party (APC)?
All the aforementioned parties broke away from their mother party for one reason or the other. Did we not see the abysmal performance of all these breakaway parties? Clearly, they did not have any negative impact on the performance of their mother parties.
You see, in this political enterprise, the very people who will convince you to breakaway and form a splinter political party will someday abandon you midstream, and ultimately run back to their mother party.
The name of Hon. Bede Ziedeng clearly comes to mind. This man used to be the General Secretary of the eagle-headed Umbrella. He left the party, and, with Obed Asamoah, formed the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP), where he was made the General Secretary. But today, he is the Member of Parliament for Lawra Constituency under the ticket of the Umbrella, a party he once abandoned.
A mention could also be made of Mr. Goosie Tanor, a breakaway member of the Umbrella, who not too long ago announced his return to the Umbrella, after being in the political wilderness for nearly two decades. Goosie even campaigned for the Umbrella in the 2020 polls and still remains a member.
History has taught us that any decision that we make today has consequences on our political future. Alan has made his decision to breakaway and we live to see if his story would be the odd one among the lot. I doubt it, though!
See you next week for another interesting konkonsa Deo volente!