Former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings
Former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings has said the December 2020 general election is not about her personality but rather how her party can work hard to get more people in Parliament to advance a continued non-partisan agenda for national development.
She said the system of two parliamentary whips which have been dominated by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) does not appear to have worked to perfection for the country and the time has come to move away from that.
Addressing members of the National Democratic Party (NDP) in Accra after being endorsed as the party’s flagbearer for the 2020 general election, the former First Lady said, “We in NDP acknowledge that not every view or vision is reflected by the NDC or by the NPP. And … we can achieve more collectively as a nation when the debate is taken out of the purview of two parliamentary whips.”
The NDP was born out of the NDC after the former First Lady was humiliated in 2011 when she tried to unseat the then President Mills to become the NDC flagbearer in the 2012 general election, and the party used state machinery to stop her.
She said that “over the past two decades, our multi-party democratic system has ushered in five constitutionally elected presidents – five – each of whom was a candidate of the two major political parties,” adding “yes, it may indicate a continuous peaceful change of administration. However, this has seen the habit of politicizing policies aimed at our national development in favour of point scoring, geared towards elections. And we’ve got to move away from that.”
Party Primaries
“It is so important to have many more people in Parliament. That is where the laws are made. That is where we can help our people. So we’ve got to make sure that we encourage people within the NDP; in fact, each member within the NDP should be able to identify a good person that can get into Parliament,” she stressed.
“We should have more representatives then we will not have two major parliamentary whips. Maybe we will have four. It will help to improve on the quality of Parliament; it will help the Executive also to do their work better (sic),” she added.
She recounted how she led her NGO 31st December Women’s Movement to fight for women empowerment and said her commitment towards helping the country to make progress was still unshaken.
The 3rd NDP national conference was under the theme: ‘Shared Leadership for National Transformation, Human Empowerment and Anti-Corruption’.
By Nii Adjei Mensahfio