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The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) youth activist and a loyalist of former President Jerry John Rawlings, Mr. Ras Mubarak, has said the just ended flagbearership contest between former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings and President John Evans Atta Mills has nothing to do with the popularity of the former President. �I have heard some of the most ridiculously wild, unscientific and hugely flawed arguments made by commentators about the influence of former President Rawlings on the party he founded following the inability of his �double sweetheart� � Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings � to win the ruling party�s presidential primaries despite a gallantry showing,� he said. He continued that some of those claims are that President Rawlings� hand in the NDC has been hugely weakened, that the party has finally purged itself from the overbearing influence of its founder. �Others have suggested that, Rawlings� influence in the ruling party is at an all-time low, and that the former President has been cut down to size. I think these analysis are at best insincere,� he added in a press statement he has issued. �The contest between Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings and President Mills was not about the popularity of Jerry Rawlings in the NDC; the election was never about how much of a stranglehold the former President has in the NDC and the result can certainly never be a verdict on Rawlings� popularity in the party or country at large,� he maintained.