President Mahama fetes NDC old guards!
As fate would have it, this column last week Friday was on an aspect of the significance of experience in the biggest opposition party, the New Patriotic Party, and how excessive reliance on it in the consideration for leadership selection has not helped to secure electoral victory for the historical and current party.
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On that Friday last week, President Mahama, as leader of the ruling (NDC) National Democratic Congress hosted old members of the government of the defunct Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) and the first government of the successor NDC of the Fourth Republic, all under Chairman, later President Jerry John Rawlings.
I believe this meeting of old surviving hands of the revolution and the party with the fresh and current leadership of the party and the government is a very significant development in our politics which merits some insights. This is especially so in view of the democratising policies instituted by the party of late. These developments, the most important of which is the opening of the franchise in party primaries at all levels to all duly-registered party members, has effectively transformed the party of revolution and military dictatorship into the most democratic and open political party in this country. It is a remarkable, positive metamorphosis akin to the initial return to constitutional, civilian rule also in 1992-3 championed by the PNDC. This ushered in the current Fourth Republic.
In sum; therefore, such a meeting of the old and the new, bridging the past experiences of our nation as an undemocratic country, with the present as a fully-fledged democracy, cannot but be laden with significance. I noted with amusement the valid presence of my senior brother, the current MP for Ningo-Prampram Constituency, Mr. E.T Mensah, who was a staffer at the registry of the University of Ghana at the time of the December 31, 1981 coup which brought the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) to power, when I was in my final year at Legon and the transformations he has witnessed and been very much a part of, entering parliament in 1996 with the 38-year- old plain John Mahama. E.T Mensah is now over 70 years old, still much older than the President who will retire at 62 still younger than his erstwhile parliamentary colleague of six years ago! Time has really passed.
Past NDC , present NDC
But of course, there is much more to the reconnection of the past NDC with the current NDC, by its leadership than what I have said. With one gesture, President Mahama has once again shown why he is our President today, embodying the youthful aspirations of a thrusting society and paying appropriate homage to the path laid by others who have gone before. Of course, thanks to the democracy we are now enjoying courtesy the same supple credentials of the defunct PNDC and the successor NDC, some of us are now free to express the interesting opinion that that history was not worth our time, as if the past can be relived and experienced all over again. Though I am of the historical school which frowns on the inevitability of events, I still pay homage to the sacrosanctity of what has happened, and not what could have happened.
The NDC of President Mahama is blazing a political trail by acts which would be impossible to better by other political parties in this country and which, assuredly, would inure to the benefit of the party and the nation. Here we are with leading lights of the ruling party voting openly in the recent District Assembly and Unit Committee elections, proving their faith in the democratic process, as others who have hitherto trumpeted their democratic credentials, stay at home sulking over a register whose integrity they vouched for in our last general elections. Here we are, knowing very well a similar get-together in the largest opposition would be a gathering of age mates and superannuated politicians who have precious little to teach us because their effective roles in government were executed in the early 1970s, some forty-plus years ago.
Tapping institutional memory
Institutional memory is the priceless gift the old can bestow on the young in the governing process. The possibilities of it being tapped successfully unites old and young in the process of nation-building, as well as cementing ties of comradeship in political parties, a necessary ingredient for successful outcomes in electoral contests. Failure means the disintegration of central, united efforts to forge common strategies and goals for national development. The nation is the ultimate loser in the internecine squabbles of political parties especially of those parties in a position to drive or influence policy, and should not be countenanced, even as an aspect of the freedom of speech and association of the individuals involved.
It is the inspiration that the old give the young and current which drives progress. It is thus essential that those leading now should themselves not be too old to stand on the shoulders of those gone before. As (late) President Atta Mills encapsulated at one time, we are not going to progress as a nation by inheriting the enemies of other old colleagues.
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This event has further strengthened the democratic ethos of the ruling party, signaling once again that it is the party of innovation in our polity. President Mahama has shown with this deft move that he treasures service in the cause of the nation in his party, that unwavering loyalty to a cause is a positive in politics, and that that cause is open to the flexibility of the new and untried, leading to new vistas from the present, and progress for all Ghanaians. I congratulate him on showing the way.