Poor coordination cost NDC 2016 elections - Anita De Soso
Second Vice Chairman of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Anita De Soso has said she was shocked when the then flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was announced winner of the 2016 presidential election.
Read full article Recounting how she heard the news and her reaction, she said it was hard to believe until former President John Mahama who was the NDC flagbearer came out to concede defeat.
Though there were reports of hacking into the Electoral Commission's system which suggested the results were manipulated, Anita De Soso said the party did not contest the results in court because the former President humbly conceded in order to maintain peace and harmony the country has enjoyed.
“I was happy when Mahama conceded defeat. Later on, I understood what he did because Ghanaians gave us the power and now they think that they have to give the power to another person,” she stated.
She opined that the country could have been plunged into chaos should the NDC have been declared winner of the election by the Electoral Commission.
“If you look at the other side, God knows best. Who knows maybe if the NDC had won a lot of people could have died, destruction of peoples’ houses, cars and I don’t think we would have been happy going through all these things,” she opined.
Touching on why the party lost the elections on Joynews talkshow ‘Reflecting in Opposition’, Anita De Soso revealed that the relationship between the party, its government and the founder was bad.
She explained, if there was coordination between the founder and the party, then the government would have known what goes on in the country and be able to devise ways of resolving challenges.
She also mentioned the segregation in the party as a factor that sent the party into opposition.
According to her, the too many groupings in the party made it difficult to share resources equally among them and hence a lot of the members of the party were dissatisfied and offended.
“There were also issues with our register. In trying to adopt the biometric registration process, non-party members found their names into the register and most of the party members had their names out. Party members became aggrieved,” she recounted.
