NDC crisis as a result of leadership vacuum – lecturer

A senior lecturer at the University of Education Winneba Dr Ahmed Jinapor has attributed the crisis in the National Democratic Congress to what he calls “leadership vacuum.”

Senior party officials, ex-officials and party activists have been engaged in a fierce media debate, sometimes degenerating into insults, accusations and mudslinging, about the cause of the party’s defeat in the 2016 polls.

Many have accused the party’s National Organiser, Kofi Adams, for igniting the media war when he said former president John Mahama should be made the flagbearer.

“There seems to be a leadership vacuum. Leadership vacuum in the sense that if I am right, I stand to be corrected, if a political party like the NDC of its nature when it is in opposition it is the National Chairman who takes over the party. But today, I haven’t heard of the national chairman speak,” Dr Jinapor told Radio Ghana’s “Behind the News.”

“As we speak the former president hasn’t spoken regarding what has happened even though a body has been mandated to look at the affairs of the NDC regarding what led it losing. And even then, as we speak, people are still making noise,” he added.

In his view, the former president must take the ultimate responsibility for the electoral defeat. “And the party would have to reflect on its performance as a government and think about the way of coming forward when it comes to 2020.”

Asked how the party has handled the post-election defeat, Dr Ahmed said the setting up of the Dr Kwesi Botchwey Committee to look into electoral defeat was a step in the right direction.

He added that the internal bickering in the NDC is characteristic of a party that loses an election.