[ 2017-04-20 ]

Baba Jamal, former Member of Parliament for Akwatia

Baba Jamal reveals why NDC lost 2016 elections
Many NDC bigwigs are blaming former President John
Mahama for the defeat the party suffered in the
2016 general elections, but former Member of
Parliament for the Akwatia Constituency in the
Eastern Region has begged to differ.

According to him, the defeat the opposition
National Democratic Congress (NDC) experienced in
the 2016 elections was a collective failure of all
party officials including himself as certain
policies they implemented pushed the NDC into
opposition.

Speaking on Okay FM’s 'Ade Akye Abia' Morning
Show, Baba Jamal disclosed that policies like
scrapping teacher and nursing trainees allowances
in an election year brought the downfall of the
party.

He again stated that the defeat of the NDC was
largely caused by the increase in the Electoral
College during the party’s primaries as it
brought disunity into the party.

“I realised that our primaries caused our defeat
due to the disintegration it brought. The mode of
selecting Parliamentary Candidates was wrong and
we shouldn’t try it again. Every seat we won by
2000 or 3000 votes, we lost them all in the 2016
election, and so clearly, it was the primaries
which caused those loses,” he said.

He further asserted that the failure of the party
to stop MCEs, DCEs and Ministers who were not MPs
and Presidential Staffers to contest sitting NDC
MPs in the primaries also caused the NDC fortunes
in the 2016 election, as many of the sitting MPs
lost their seats to government appointees with
full understanding that the appointees have the
support of the President.

“Initially we suggested that MCEs, DCEs,
Ministers who are not MPs and Presidential
Staffers shouldn’t contest any sitting NDC MP.
The issue was that when the Presidential Staffer
and appointees contested a sitting NDC MP, the
perception was that the President was in support
of the Staffers and the Appointees, and that
brought bickering in the party, especially when
the MPs lost their seats to the Staffers and
Appointees,” he asserted.

“Ministers and Appointees attitudes toward party
members whenever they visit their offices brought
anger as the foot soldiers sometimes sit for many
hours without anybody attending to them. These are
the three major issues which caused our downfall
in the 2016 election, and it is not the President
who didn’t do his work well,” he indicated.

Source - peacefmonline.com

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