THE NPP CONGRESS

..The Main Highlights and Aftermath

So the most expensive,vulgar, wasteful, highly competitive and totally predictable political event over the last 2 decades did com off on 22 december 2007 and all the predictions came true.

First it must be said that no amout of 'Kuffour Dollar' was spared to orgainise a very expensive congress. the layout and decorations did befit a coronation of a manarch....and in many ways it was a coronation. It was well attended by all the big fishes of the NPP from all over the world.i wonder if any ambassador or a consular stayed at post over the period.

The atmospfere was manic and the tension was palpable even from yhe very beggining.

The Mediocre president gave a speech patting he and his underachieving government on the back for a job "well done". It was a typical Danqual-Busia narrative of success as the president kept insisting that their ability to stay in power for 2 succeesive terms happens to be one of thir biggest achievemnt.

Then there were the speeches from the 17 presidential candidates. They had five minutes each to drum theirs messages to thye 2300 delegates fro the last time. Most of them were uninspring and the rest mediocre. however two of the candidates really stood out;Dr Konadu Apraku and Dr Arthur kennedy

After a very tense wait, the voting got underway at about 6pm. The voting was torturously slow as the delegates of from the 10 region went in one after the other to determine the fate of the 17 presidential hopefuls. The process went on in the whiles allegations of vote buying and influence peddling were bubbling under. Matters came to a head around 9:23pm when the National organizer of the Party, Lord Commey announced to the hearing of everyone that Paul Afoko , a member of the Alan Kyeremanten’s Team was distributing money (in Euros and Pounds) in the congress hall. According to sources a woman accosted Afoko in the corridors and even slapped him for attempting to bribe some people. This triggered a lot of anger which had been building up since the beginning of the campaign. It confirmed the longstanding belief among the other camps, especially Akuffo Addo’s Team who felt the combination of unbridled spending and perceived support from President gave Alan undue advantage. The anger led to very distressing and violent actions from those who felt hard done by. The party Chairman was seen furiously striking some unfortunate souls who dared to speak back to him. The voting was disrupted and pandemonium broke out all over hall. There was swearing, shoving and slapping all over the place. Some unlucky journalists did not escape the brunt of the violence and some were physically assaulted and removed from their positions. The violence dropped slightly when Paul Afoko; the man accused of distributing the money was removed from the hall and sent to a police station. However the violence and bedlam resurfaced when some animated delegates decided to call for Alan to be sanctioned. The violence was so bad that the police were nearly overwhelmed in protecting the ballot process. After another round of mayhem uneasy calm was restored and voting restarted. At the end of the voting process the next morning the visibly retired candidates and their spouses who had been captive in the congress hall were all suddenly alert and in a positive mood. Based on the amount of money they had spent on the delegates and the subsequent assurances made by them, they had every right to be positive. After some delays, the counting eventually got underway at around 8 am. At the end of the counting it was clear that two candidates had clearly taken very significant portions of the polls. It became clear that Akuffo Addo and Alan Kyeremanten’s were poised to go into a crunch second round. Akuffo Addo had 42% of the vote while Alan garnered 34% both of them falling below the 50%+1 vote required to win. The most shocking in the electoral contest was the amount of votes Arthur Kennedy, the New York banker who thought being the vice president of a mid size state bank in the US qualified him to the position of the president of the Republic of Ghana – could only muster 2 votes! All was set for a crunch second round between the president’s boy (Alan) and the party grassroots choice (Akuffo Addo). Suddenly the division in the party became much nuanced and the congress grounds split straight down the middle. The Akuffo Addo camp and the Alan camp. Word on the congress grounds got out that the rest of the candidates had all gone behind the Akuffo Addo camp, ostensibly to teach the president a lesson for supporting Alan. Alan did get the message and after a tense hold up of about 45 minutes all the candidates went into a closed-door meeting. they all emerged from the meeting apparently with a consensus ; abandon a potentially bruising and acrimonious second round, the outcome of which everyone in the hall knew. So Alan stepped onto the podium to address the crowd. He gave a long speech the central theme of which was to as he put it “concede victory”. It is significant that he chose to use that phrase instead of the more familiar and acceptable “concede defeat” . So Akuffo Addo was declared the default winner. It was an expected victory given the work he had done and his visibility among the grassroots……… and lets face it he spent the most money.