Atta Mills, the legacy killer

E.  Ablorh-Odjidja

July 15, 2011

The NDC primaries are over but who would have thought that the former first lady, Nana Kunadu Agyeman Rawlings, would come up a loser by a whopping 96% plus of the vote?

Well, that was what happened.  At the close of the NDC Sunyani primaries, on July 9, 2011, the election was decided in favor of President Atta Mills to run for a second term.

This is not a single defeat for Nana Konadu alone.  Jerry John Rawlings, her husband, has to consider this a defeat to legacy too. 

In the NDC party terms, Jerry, the legendary and powerful political entity, strategist, and seizer of the power of the nation’s legacy has also been dealt a powerful blow.

Jerry, the vaunted leader of the NDC, has been made very vulnerable as the result of the primaries showed. 

Blindfolded by ambition, they were led to Sunyani in the belief that they were invisible in absolute terms.  Instead, they were dealt a crushing defeat.

Politics, some say, is a bitch. It is the process when, sometimes, rogues become heroes.

In Rawling's case, it was through a coup that he became a political hero.  He has long since worn out his welcome.  What with all the “boooom talks” and the comical postures he had assumed over the years!

Some are wondering now whether Rawlings can be a factor in the coming November 2012 elections.

Certainly, the NDC can use his presence in the 2012 campaigns. He is sure to bring excitement to their rallies.

But after all that he said and did to President Mills and the NDC’s administration before the Sunyani primaries, the excitement he brings will be more of comic relief rather than one from a serious campaigner.

A serious analysis of Rawlings' impact on the NDC primaries will predict that his influence on 2012 general, if any, will be negligible.

The votes from NDC stalwarts in the primaries are already in the bag for the pending 2012 general election.  And these are the votes that went against his wife by the margin of almost 96% at Sunyani.

The NPP, on their part, will certainly withhold their votes from the NDC candidate, Atta Mills.   

However, they will love to see Rawlings active in the NDC 2012 campaigns. They see him as politically impotent after Sunyani, wounded and ready to be exploited.

Rawlings’ presence in the 2012 campaigns is not likely to scare any votes away from the NPP; rather it may produce that effect within the NDC ranks.

Worse, Rawlings standing with independents, the more politically savvy class, is now shaky.  

His mystique was unraveled at Sunyani and his complaints are now seen as empty rants and not as worthy material for a political manifesto.

In short, Rawlings may attempt to rally the troops all he wants, but he is no longer the giant some perceived him to be, or he thought of himself before Sunyani.  

By going all broke for his wife’s campaign, he has managed to downsize his influence.  Many now see him as a giant with clay feet.

Sunyani, therefore, was Rawling's “Humpty Dumpty” moment. No one can put together the former Flt Lieutenant’s reputation as a winner again.

Astonishing as that may sound, the one-time overlord of the NDC has been rejected by the very party he founded. Ironically, he arrived at this fate by his flawed judgment, aided of course by a large dose of unadulterated hubris.

But Kudos for the love Rawlings has shown for his wife. He wanted to pay this loving homage at our expense. His being a president for 19 years was not enough. His wife must rule too!

However, Sunyani was not about love. It was about politics and power, the features that these two wanted most in life.

Some sympathetic observers have tried to provide a noble excuse for Nana Kunadu’s defeat.

One writer said “Her challenge also showed that there are some women in Ghana who are ready to challenge men in our men-dominated world. Such a challenge is an indication that Ghana's democratic experiment is taking a “new leap”.

Yes, the woman factor; but why specifically Nana Kunadu for this particular challenge, if it weren’t for the fact that she was the wife of a former president, Jerry Rawlings?

Rawling's move, again, was not a gender issue, nor was it driven by an altruistic need to uplift the socio-political standing of women in Ghana.  

Any other woman from the NDC ranks, carrying that mantle to Sunyani, would have made the gender issue more tenable; not Nana Kunadu Rawlings.

The reputation of our courageous women in politics is already known throughout our history and did not suffer a defeat, with Konadu at the helm. 

The Mokola market women of the colonial days come to mind. They had provided the moral fiber as well as the financial muscle that bankrolled Nkrumah and the CPP to power.  Women politicians and state ministers were part of our first republic.

This is not to impugn the devotion and loyalty Rawlings has for Nana Kunadu, his wife. 

But her quest to become the president of Ghana ought to be challenged.  It was not a gender issue.  She had every right to stand for the primaries on her own.  And no one prevented her entry into the race, but it has to be admitted that she was fairly and roundly defeated.

Rawling walked out of the primary grounds at Sunyani, wife in hand and very crestfallen. His wife Nana Kunadu, the woman he had once compared to the legendary Yaa Asentewa, had lost her first battle, hopefully, the last one.

The defeat of Kunado Rawlings who rode on the back of her husband's reputation, should have one meaning alone - curtains!

The two must now acknowledge that their political usefulness is done. They should step to the sideline to give Ghana a chance for the fresh air of civil governance.

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher Ghanadot.com, Accra, July 15, 2011

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