Alan’s Butterfly: long desired 3rd force?
We’ve been alternately hot and cold since 1992.
In election year, Ghanaians enthusiastically – ready even to kill, maim and destroy reputations – mobilise support for their favourite candidates.
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On December 7, they endure the snaky interminable queues till 6 p.m. and sit with agonising impatience till about 4 a.m.
December 8 for the first phone call from unimpeachable party sources announcing who’s won and who’s in a comfortable lead.
Six months, at most, under the new President, cracks of regret begin to show.
The whining, demonstrations, occupying, picketing and striking begin and never cease till December 7, four years later.
Party politics has become the stench that never leaves our nostrils – except for the ruling few.
What makes the 1992 Constitution smell so bad is the excessive power in the hands of one person, a President who can do all things.
A wave of his hand transforms a pauper, Cinderella-like, into a prince(ess)!
Forever gone in our Fourth Republic is the meritocratic system under which long-serving career diplomats could dream of becoming Ambassadors.
Every SOE now has a political CEO.
Soon, even messengers will be appointed from party headquarters! Their only qualification is that they are air, sea and foot soldiers.
Come 2023, Alan Kyeremateng is advocating what sounds like the Union Government which General Acheampong attempted to foist on Ghana in the 1970s.
It failed to fly because Acheampong was thought to want to use it to perpetuate military rule.
Some 47 years later, Alan believes that the wingspan of his Royal Butterfly is large enough to bring under its cover all shades of political persuasion.
But will he ever become President?
Will typical NDC/CPP supporters jump ship because they believe in the 3rd force agenda of an all-inclusive Cabinet, politically neutral SOE-CEOs and board chairs and ambassadors?
Under the Butterfly, Parliamentarians will not have to be whipped into voting.
But, can Alan make a dent in NPP’s own stronghold? Forget about the results of the last Super-delegates conference.
Scientific surveys by credible researchers say that voting in that particular exercise was not, IN ANY WAY, a reflection of how NPP would have voted in November - with Alan on the ballot.
Others will ask: even in Ashanti, will disaffected supporters vote skirt-and-blouse?
Outside of NPP, is it possible for Alan to attract significant numbers from the minority parties, namely PNC, CPP, etc? Even if they do, the Ghanaian reality is that all those small parties, together, do not command even 2% of the votes.
Another thing.
Without a political party mass movement, will Alan possess the machinery to engage in house-to-house campaigning?
Alan’s answer will determine how different he will be from those who have gone this ‘independent’ way before.
Without exception, all individuals who, in the Fourth Republic, tore themselves away from the two established parties to go either independent or backed by a party, failed to make even a slight dent.
In the run-up to the 2000 election, Goosie Tandoh, a founding member of the NDC, largely rumoured to be the grassroots man whose magic with figures won the 1992 and 1996 for NDC, quit the party. He was so heavyweight that the noise of his resignation to contest the 2000 election on the ticket of his National Reform Party reverberated across the land.
It was feared that he was going to snatch one-half of the NDC.
In the 2000 election, he lost, having garnered only 1.15% of the votes.
Obed Asamoah, a former national chairman of the NDC, whose house became the party’s war chest (from where his police detail was spiriting money to their girlfriends), resigned in 2010 and formed the Democratic Freedom Party on whose ticket he campaigned to become President.
He lost. Like Goosie, he returned to the party.
In 2016 Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings would have been the first female President of Ghana if she had won with her National Democratic Party which she formed in 2016. She lost, ignominiously.
Aware of what is resembling a political jinx in Ghana, some pundits are rushing to conclude that Mr Kyerematen will be the next.
The man knows this but his Bible tells him in Ecclesiastes 11:4 that “whoever watches the wind will not sow and whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.”
