The government of the New Patriotic Party is officially two years old today.
In these opening days of 2003, as the NDC is grappling with a self-inflicted wound of Rawlings and Mills turning down a seasonal gift from the state and its attendant media cacophony, and Mills is engaged in a losing battle of trying to shed off the skin of a poodle, the ruling NPP is riding on a wave of confidence and optimism.
At the end of 2002, the party was putting finishing touches to its scheduled Delegates Congress which eventually took place in the twin city of Sekondi-Takoradi this past weekend. The congress re-affirmed President Kufuor as the party’s presidential candidate for Election 2004 and elected a Women’s Organizer, Youth Organizer and Deputy General Secretary.
The NPP has never been in a more ebullient mood – not even when it won Election 2000.
The Sekondi-Takoradi congress was a celebration, a carnival, a harvest, a durbar, all rolled into one. Even intra-party skeptics got infected by this congress, as optimism flowed freely and prospects for 2004 looked ever brighter.
At the congress, it was a supremely confident President Kufuor whipping his party into shape and exerting his authority as never before. How else would he order all his ministers and other government functionaries back to work immediately after the congress rally, if he did not want to get the message of action across? Said an aspiring parliamentary candidate to ADM last Sunday, “He [the president] gave his orders and the ministers are going to have to be at their desks tomorrow.”
But even with all that much feeling of goodwill and bright future electoral prospects, realists within the party were also quietly discussing the thorny vote-getting or vote-losing issues still begging for serious attention.
Three issues, among many, stand out as problem areas that the NPP would have to address before voters go to the cast their ballots in December 2004.
Source: GhanaWeb
