NPP Will Run For Cover After NDC Congress - Koku Anyidoho

The Director of Communications at the presidency, Koku Anyidoho, has counseled the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) to focus on marketing their flag bearer Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo ahead of the 2012 elections rather than making issues in the ruling party their priority. According to him, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) will come out of its Sunyani congress stronger and united to ensure the elephant (NPP) is condemned to the bush. �This party is going to stay united after Saturday; will go into the 2012 election and retire Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo from politics� he added. The NDC would this weekend hold its delegates congress at the Sunyani Coronation Park to elect a flag-bearer to lead the party into the 2012 general elections. The contest is between President J.E.A. Mills who is seeking re-election for a second term go at the presidency in 2012; and former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings who says she is in the contest to restore hope and dignity for ordinary folks and to rejuvenate the ideals of probity, accountability, freedom and justice on which the party was formed. Speaking on Asempa FM�s Ekosii Sen programme Thursday, Koku Anyidoho said the over concentration of the NPP on the ruling party�s issues especially on developments leading up to the delegates congress is rather inuring to the benefit of the NDC because NPP comments and criticisms make the ruling party very popular. He said the NPP spend enormous time discussing the NDC because they want to capitalize on the party's failures during the congress in Sunyani and use as a campaign tool ahead of the 2012 general elections. The Director of Communications said the NPP were embarking on their listening campaign tour because they did not have any campaign message or policies to better the lives of Ghanaians when voted into power. He counseled that �the Ghanaian electorate is not going to gamble in 2012. The light is shining so bright in one direction; they are going to ignore it and go down in that alley�. Koku Anyidoho observed that the NDC has redefined politics in Ghana because for the first time in Ghana�s history, an incumbent President is being contested by a female for the flagbearership of the party which is a testament to the democratic credentials of the ruling party. He said President Mills would win by a wide margin to send the message clear to the NPP that he is the man to beat in 2012. Koku Anyidoho was optimistic that after congress, both FONKAR (Friends of Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings) and GAME (Get Atta Mills Endorsed) would come together for a united party. Meanwhile, the NPP has debunked assertions that they have any interest in the outcome of the ruling party's congress in Sunyani, adding that they remain focused on recapturing power from the NDC.