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Obed Asamoah predicts surprises in
2008 elections
Accra, April 5, Ghanadot/GNA – Dr Obed Yao Asamoah, Life
Patron of the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP), on Saturday
said the nation would witness surprises in the upcoming
elections.
“The story of the race between the hare and the tortoise is
about to be reflected in the leadership race for this year,”
Dr Asamoah said in a speech to ecstatic delegates at the
first National Delegates’ Congress of the DFP in Accra.
The congress was organised to elect the Party’s presidential
candidate for general election due in December this year,
and also to confirm some 21 leaders who stood unopposed in
national executive positions.
Alhaji Abdul-Rahman Issakah, a private businessman and Mr
Emmanuel Ansah Entwi are contesting the presidential
primaries.
The DFP is the first political party in the history of the
country to be electing a presidential candidate in an
election year, an action pundits considered to be too late
and therefore counter-productive.
Dr Asamoah said even through the Party was entering this
year’s presidential race late, it was doing so with “the
winning principles of tolerance, humility, honesty, respect
for all and integrity, as well as assurances of national
peace and stability, transparency in governance, development
in freedom, commitment to youth employment, wealth creation
and poverty eradication, efficient service delivery and
free, compulsory universal education”.
He reassured that a DFP administration would involve chiefs
in local government and that its political goals would be
guided by religious and moral values, stressing that it
would intensify the fight against corruption through
practical and publicized asset declaration.
“We will strengthen the Commission on Human Rights and
Administrative Justice to become an independent prosecuting
agency, make sure that the Serious Fraud Office is
independent of the Ministry of Justice and requiring the
sending of its reports to CHRAJ for action and also making
the Auditor-General’s report available to the SFO for
action,” he said. “We’ll also reduce red tape in
administration.”
Dr Asamoah said the 2008 elections were crucial for the
country, adding that Ghanaians were at the crossroads, faced
with the choice to either consolidate their democracy, or
return it to the “violent changes of the constitutional
order”.
He urged the electorate to choose the path of democracy and
reject those who threaten mayhem or whose history portrays
intolerance.
“We must shun those with imperial airs and culture of
impunity. We must not entertain hypocrites who preach peace
but are ready to profit from violence, hooliganism, gutter
journalism, lies, abuse and vilification of opponents,” he
said.
He said the DFP abhorred conflicts, insults, character
assassination, lies and abuse of power and that it was
prepared to deliver on basic services such as water, power,
cheap and abundant food, clothes, shelter, education and
good healthcare, when given the mandate to government the
country.
Dr Asamoah asked the electorate to vote for leaders with the
capacity to be transparent, truthful and honest about the
real needs of the people and responsible trustees of
national wealth.
“We can do without the professional pretenders of power,” he
said.
In a solidarity message, Mr Kweku Adams, Deputy National
Youth Organiser of the National Democratic Congress from
which the DFP broke away, invited the DFP to return to
“their roots”, saying the NDC stood for the same principles
expounded by Dr. Asamoah.
Mr Adams noted that the DFP was the first political party to
be electing its flagbearer in an election year, adding that
in line with the tortoise and hare analogy made by Dr
Asamoah earlier, it was only wise for the DFP to attach
itself to NDC to give that strategic advantage over the
hare, which was the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Mr Kosi Dede, Deputy General Secretary of the Convention
People’s Party urged the DFP to focus on alternative choices
of governance they could offer the country instead of
portraying themselves as “disgruntled fellow’s party”.
There were other solidarity messages from the People’s
National Party and Great Consolidated People’s Party. There
was no representation from the NPP.
GNA
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