Woyongo Begs Delegates

THE UPPER East Regional Minister, Mark Owen Woyongo, who has remained tight-lipped about the flagbearership race of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has declared he will vote for President John Evans Atta Mills. The Minister�s sudden decision to talk about the July 8-10 congress of the ruling NDC gives the impression that Mills� appointees and party functionaries, including MCEs and DCEs, have realized that Mrs. Rawlings is not a pushover. They have therefore decided to get serious and start begging for votes for their boss. An audio recording intercepted by Daily Guide in Bolgatanga captured Mr Woyongo practically begging delegates not to �make a mistake� to vote for the former First Lady because that would take the party straight to opposition which he prays the NDC does not return to. The Minister, in that recording, claims that all delegates are saying that Professor Mills should be given the chance to finish his term because there has been an appreciable level of infrastructural development in the Upper East region since he assumed office in 2009. But interactions with some delegates revealed that NDC members at the constituency and ward levels are not happy with the way the party�s activities are being run. Most have confidentially complained that some DCEs in the region have taken over the running of the party and decided which executives they should work with and those not to work with, thereby rendering most party executives useless and leaving them unhappy. Until recently, these government appointees did not care whether the disgruntled party executives and other delegates were happy or not. But suddenly, NDC delegates have become so important and are being sought after by government appointees, including the Vice President, John Daramani Mahama, who quietly came to the Upper East region to meet delegates to beg them to let by-gone be by-gone and vote for President Mills. As the former First Lady went round the Upper East region campaigning, she promised that if voted as flagbearer of the party, she would reverse the trend where party executives have to practically beg DCEs and MCEs for money to run the party in the constituency. �Nobody wants to go into opposition, nobody, and if we in the unlikely event go into opposition, it will take us a long time to get back into power. So my appeal to delegates is that they shouldn�t make a mistake, because if they make that mistake, we will regret and we will regret for a very long time,� Mark Woyongo stressed.