The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has been charged to reorganize its machinery and effectively strategize to enable the party capture power in 2024.
The National executives are being cautioned that without addressing concerns of the branch and constituency executives, its chances of winning the next election will be halved.
Former governor of the Bank of Ghana and Minister of Finance under the erstwhile NDC government, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor made the call in the Ashanti Region during an official party outreach programme.
Mr. Duffuor, who has been tipped to contest the NDC’s flagbearer position for the 2024 election addressed NDC grassroots members at some branches and constituencies in the region over the weekend.
The outreach programme forms part of the party’s reorganization efforts towards the 2024 general elections.
Dr. Kwabena Duffuor told the party’s local executives in the region that his goal for coming to interact with them is to energize and bring the base of the NDC out of apathy for effective reorganization towards election 2024.
He posted on his Facebook page after his meetings: “Addressing the concerns of our branch and constituency executives is key to the NDC’s reorganization effort.”
“In view of this, I was once again in the Ashanti region over the weekend to interact with some local executives as part of the NDC’s outreach program to local branches and constituencies”.
“It is always important to touch base with our grassroots,” Dr. Duffuor concluded.
The NDC has officially begun its reorganization efforts to prepare itself for the 2024 general elections through a nationwide outreach program of interaction with the party base involving selected party leaders. It has also begun a membership registration drive throughout the country.
This will lead to the election of new party executives from the branch levels through to constituencies, regions and the national level before ultimately electing a flag bearer at the last stage towards the end of 2022.
There have been long-running speculations that the former finance minister under President John Evans Atta may be putting his foot forward to lead the NDC into the 2024 elections as its flag bearer. With the party seeking to make inroads into the Ashanti region, a place with the highest number of constituencies in the country (47) and the second-highest voter population after the greater Accra region, Duffuor may be a strategic candidate for the NDC should he officially step forward.
It is unclear if Dr. Duffuor’s interactions with the NDC grassroots is the start of his undeclared campaign to lead the party as its flag bearer in 2024. However, the NDC rank and file seem sharply divided for what concerns a leadership succession plan with one section strongly believing that it is time for former President John Manama to give way for new blood with fresh ideas to take the party machinery into the next elections without the baggage of the past.
Although former President John Manama hasn’t made his intentions clear to Ghanaians, it is widely believed that he intends to run again against all odds. But unlike in the last party primaries where he was more popular and run unopposed in the party’s primaries, it is becoming clear that there is a build-up of internal resistance against the status quo as the biggest opposition party is desperate to win power in 2024.
An eventual declaration by Dr. Duffuor who clearly appears to be the NDC’s most formidable face of Ashanti will also make him the ultimate and symbolic face of that internal quest for change within an opposition party that is seeking in government one 2024.