Focus on grass-roots mobilisation - Asamoah-Boateng advises NPP

Isaac Yeboah Politics Sep - 26 - 2013 , 11:46

A former Minister of State, Mr Stephen Asamoah-Boateng, has expressed concern about the scramble to contest leadership positions in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) when the immediate focus should be on galvanising grass-roots support for the party.

Galvanise grass roots

He said what the current executive of the NPP should rather be doing was a self -introspection of what caused the party’s defeat in the 2012 polls and also begin a massive grass-roots mobilisation exercise instead of the hurry to elect the next flag bearer of the party.

“We do not need a flag bearer now because what the party requires right now is to begin the debate for electoral reforms that will ensure an even playing field for all the political players and not the craze to elect a flag bearer,” Mr Asamoah-Boateng told the Daily Graphic in Accra last Tuesday.

He spoke to the Daily Graphic on a wide range of issues he thought could thwart the electoral fortunes of the party, especially the open support by executive members of the NPP for Nana Akufo-Addo as the flag bearer of the party for the 2016 polls.

Mr Asamoah-Boateng served as Minister of Information and subsequently Minister of Local Government and Rural Development in the erstwhile NPP administration.

Pursue electoral reforms

According to Mr Asamoah-Boateng, there was the need for the NPP to work together with the other political parties towards an electoral system that would forestall election petitions in the future.

He expressed the view that any attempt to elect a flag bearer ahead of electing national executives would spell doom for the party, stressing that those calling for that arrangement were only pursuing their selfish interest.

He contended that advocates for that plan wanted to make a ‘personality cult’ around the flag bearer in a grand scheme to alienate the hardworking people from the party.

Intolerance in NPP

For the one time Member of Parliament for Mfantsiman West, the current level of intolerance where divergent views had now been thrown to the ‘dogs’ was a cause for worry and questioned how the NPP could ever win power if its members were intolerant of each other’s views.

“If we don’t tolerate our own views, how then can we attract those who are not members of the party into our fold to even tolerate them since they are not our members?” he questioned, adding that to win political power could not be realised with only the vote from party supporters.

He cited himself as an object of attack by NPP members when he disagreed with the position of some party executive on radio over the decision to elect a flag bearer at the expense of building the party’s structures.

“Let us calm down, engage in healthy debates, build consensus and give value and priority to the grass roots. We cannot build a house from the roof, so we need to build our foundation which is the grass roots,” the former minister stated.

Thank you tour

On the party’s thank you tour he pointed out that the tours came without a package which should have involved a fact-finding mission to ascertain the challenges affecting the party on the ground and ‘not just embarking on a thank you tour for the sake of it’.

Mr Asamoah-Boateng, who began politics at the age of 17, touted his political credentials, especially when he was local government minister, which exposed him to grass-roots politics.

He described the NPP as the alternative government and likened the party to fisherman paddling a canoe full of passengers on a river who support the fisherman to paddle the boat to move forward.

“It is in that spirit that we have to involve our grass roots to support the national executive to propel the party to victory,” he added.

Denies allegations

Mr Asamoah-Boateng denied calling on the NPP not to harass the Mahama administration. Setting the records straight, he said harassing the current administration was not the antidote to winning power.

He quoted Matthew 7:12, which states “... so in everything do unto others what you want them to do unto you” and added that what the NPP would not want to be done unto it in government, it should not do it to another government.