FONKAR Regroups -To Reunite Konadu, JJ & NDC

As part of ongoing arrangements to unite the National Democratic Congress (NDC) family in preparedness for the 2016 elections, members of the defunct Friends of Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings (FONKAR) have started meeting and strategizing on how to bring back the run- away Nana Konadu into the ruling party�s fold. Reports reaching The aL-hAJJ indicate that last Tuesday, members of the once controversial and dreaded FONKAR who are now with the NDC, converged at Agormenya in the Lower Manya Krobo district of the Eastern Region to pass a resolution to unite the NDC with former President Rawlings and his family and also prepare grounds for Nana Konadu to rejoin the party. The Agormenya meeting, which was called at the instance of former Member of Parliament for Lower Manya Krobo, Michael Teye Nyaunu, was attended by about 300 ex-FONKAR members across the country. Although the meeting was originally meant to discuss how to bring back the NDC founder and his wife into the party to take up �their rightful places�, sources say, at the initial stage of the meeting, some FONKAR members pushed for reinvigoration of the group to fight the Mahama administration. �But this was shot down by majority of us who thought there was no need fighting our own government like we did during the Mills era� the meeting concluded with a resolution to bring back Nana Konadu into her mother party, the NDC, and also properly unite the party and Chairman Rawlings,� a member of FONKAR told The aL-hAJJ on condition of anonymity. It emerged from the Agormenya meeting that 720 ex-FONKAR members in the NDC won various positions in the ongoing ruling party�s elections so far; from branch, constituencies, regional and national levels. However, what The aL-hAJJ has not been able to confirm is whether the ongoing arrangement by FONKAR members to bring back Nana Konadu into the NDC, a party she abandoned to lead the National Democratic Party in the last elections, is to prepare the grounds for her to challenge President Mahama for the party�s 2016 flag bearer post. Although the former first lady after suffering a humiliating defeat in the hands of late President Mills at the Sunyani congress and in a botched attempt to contest for President on the ticket of NDP, did not resign from the ruling National Democratic Congress. Speculations are rife among FONKAR members that Michael Teye Nyaunu�s recent criticism of the NDC leadership to allow President Mahama to go unchallenged as the party�s 2016 flag bearer is not unconnected to present plans to get Nana Konadu back into the ruling party. Teye Nyaunu was recently quoted in the media to have said �Somebody must contest against the sitting President. That is democracy being deepened,� he urged. Meanwhile, other sources have confirmed to The aL-hAJJ that, members of FONKAR�s plan to renew the NDC�s marriage with former President Rawlings and wife, was as a result of recent revelations that the former President was likely to start bashing the Mahama administration beginning June next year. Mr Rawlings was alleged to have confided in close aides that he has given the leadership of the NDC up to June next year to �properly� unite the party or risk suffering an intensified version of his boom speeches. Some political analysts have opined that should the leadership of the NDC fail to reconcile with Mr Rawlings, and should he decide to support Nana Konadu to reinvigorate the NDP, some of the gurus in the NDC he once detested under the late Mills regime, and who are now also disenchanted under the present government may most likely team up with him. In the meantime, information gathered by The aL-hAJJ suggests that most of the NDC old guards who hitherto were slighted by Mr Rawlings who were tagged variously as �greedy bastards�, �old evil dwarfs� etc, wouldn�t mind joining the Rawlingses to �reclaim� the party from the clutches of President Mahama and his appendages who they consider as �strangers�. A senior member of the party recently told this paper �despite calling us all manner of names in the past, we wouldn�t mind joining our founder and mentor, to put this party into proper shape even if the party would have to go into opposition for us to achieve that aim.� In a related development, one of the aspirants for the post of national chairman of the NDC in the upcoming congress, Dr Kofi Portuphy is reported to have assured the Rawlingses that �taking up their rightful positions in the party they founded would be among my priority areas�.