By William
Yaw Owusu
Thursday,
September 28, 2017
The report of the Professor Kwesi Botchwey Committee
– which was set up to investigate why the National Democratic Congress (NDC)
embarrassingly lost the December 7, 2016 general election - has indicated that
the electorate considered the campaign of then ruling NDC offensive.
“The NDC campaign language was generally considered
unduly combative and offensive,” page 21 of the 65-page Executive Summary of
the 455-page report - which the NDC has kept like a state secret - revealed.
According to the report, the campaign to get then
sitting President John Mahama re-elected was also ‘uncoordinated,’ stating that
campaign cash found its way into people’s pockets.
The report suggests that party organs were of the
strong belief that campaign money was diverted.
Campaign
Structure Blamed
The report of the 13-member committee revealed that in
the course of their work, they were inundated with complaints that the national
campaign team, which was coordinated by the party’s National Organizer, did not
work with a strategy document the Strategy Campaign Team had prepared.
“The new campaign structure was blamed for closing off
institutional spaces that would have allowed integration of knowledgeable and
experienced party executives into the campaign at all levels,” it recorded on
Page 21.
44.4
Percent
In effect, the committee’s report is saying that
some of the elected national officers of the NDC were ignored in the whole
campaign that resulted in the sitting president garnering only 44.4% of the total
valid votes cast nationwide - the worst
showing of the NDC since its formation.
According to the report, there was “endless launch
of regional and constituency campaigns” which reportedly “ignored the more
capillary approach recommended which involved town hall meetings, meeting of
small groups, midnight and dawn visitations by the president and all candidates,
participation in social events at the grassroots level.”
Stolen
Money
“Much of the campaign that unfolded, we were told,
did not follow these recommendations as the party ended up being accused of
conducting an extravagant campaign,” the report recounted, adding, “The
mounting of huge billboards, it was alleged, offended many voters and
reinforced NPP accusations that these were funded from stolen public monies.”
The report indicates that the establishment of the
National Campaign Committee (NCC) in May 2016 and inauguration of the members were
problematic, saying, “In the view of many party members, its establishment occurred
much too late for effective campaigning, given that information in the public
domain already suggested a possible voting date of November 7.”
Campaign
Coordinators
It claims, “There were challenges relating to the
timing, structure, composition and resourcing. The NCC also formed Regional
Campaign Task Forces (RCTFs) which were headed by regional campaign
coordinators. Some of these coordinators did not enjoy total support from their
respective regional executives, especially deputies, at both the national and
regional levels.”
According to the committee, the attempt to find out
why the NCC was ‘marginalized’ proved futile because nobody in the party could
explain it to them.
“The committee heard a number of complaints from
some members of the NCC about their marginalization in matters of resource
mobilization, channeling and distribution. We accordingly sought but were
unable to obtain clarification on the mandate of the NCC as formed in order to know
whether it included these functions in the first place, and therefore, whether
these complaints were warranted. We received none.”
No
Blueprint
The committee heard that the NCC “hardly met as a
collective entity and operated with no formal developed campaign blueprint. With
such an uncoordinated campaign approach, the NCC virtually lost its central
role in the direction of the party’s campaign agenda.”
It however, said, “As a committee we were unable to pass
judgement on the superior merit of all aspects of these recommendations, save
to say that there was obviously some tension between how the party thought that
the campaign should be conducted and how it ended up being actually conducted.”
The report says there were complaints of the party’s
structures being sidelined in the distribution of campaign resources.
Some members of the NCC said they knew nothing about
how campaign funds and logistics were sourced and distributed, nor about
amounts of money and quantities of items distributed.
“This hampered the effectiveness of the NCC and
undermined the integrity of the entire resources, also heightened tension among
party executives at all levels and created mistrust and apathy amongst the rank
and file of the party across board.”
According to the report, there were suggestions that
“the bypassing of the party structures and of party executives was itself due
to past experience of resource misuse and diversion by these structures. In the
event, some resources probably ended up being diverted and not reaching the
intended beneficiaries.”
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