The recent Meeting held in Brussels between NDC?s representatives and the Party of European Socialists (PES) as reported on Ghanaweb on 1/10/05 should be a cause of worry and concern to NPP?s political strategists in Accra. As rightly noted by Ghanaweb, the PES has amongst its Membership some very influential Political Parties whose actions influences global decisions and alters global politics. Amongst these parties are Schroeder?s SDP and Tony Blair?s UK Labour Party.
Today?s politics as we know it has become a global affair and is no longer confined to local state boundaries. Just like Corporations are building global alliances to maximize corporate influence for markets and profitability so also political parties in today?s world need to build alliances and networks with more powerful and influential neighbors to win the support for the successful implementation of policies that benefits the citizens.
Without this integrated alliance with like-minded parties in the global environment countries like Ghana stand the risk of their political systems being marginalized and left at the mercy of unscrupulous Corporate institutions and leaders who without any restraint from both within and without will plundered states in cooperation with international Corporate raiders and their political prot?g?s.
Furthermore, building alliances with more powerful allies guarantees that with their support your voice is heard in the international arena and they can sometimes be relied to use their influence to push through policies and programmes most suitable to your citizens. This is the politics of ?big-brotherism?. Everybody needs a big brother to protect him from the bully down the street.
Since the last election it could be noticed that whereas the NDC has broken out and seems to be aggressively developing an international strategy, we can hardly see any response in this direction from the NPP. NPP seems to have all its energy and strategy being sapped and focused on defending itself against allegations and other actions back home. Every sinew within NPP?s structures seems to be focused on defensive actions whilst we see the NDC unleashing an onslaught in terms of propaganda both locally and internationally and moreso building networks with major political groups in Europe and elsewhere.
The writer doesn?t know if this is a pre-determined strategy by the NDC with allegations of corruption back home intended to pin the NPP down locally whilst they focus on developing strategies with international allies. The outcome of this is that the NPP as a party would end up being marginalized internationally by the NDC whilst it receives the necessary support both morally and materially from its allies in Europe in the run-up to the 2008 elections.
Furthermore should there be an impasse in the outcome of the 2008 elections the NDC can easily call on its network of European allies to bring pressure through the institutions of the European Union for NPP to stand-down even though the evidence may be in favor of the NPP. If the Clinton Administration brought pressure on the Rawlings dictatorship to loosen his grip on the country, then imagine how easy it would be for the European Commission with influence from the PES to bring pressure on the NPP to step-down in case of dispute over future election results.
I will therefore recommend the following actions for the NPP Leadership to counter the international strategy of the NDC before it is too late for them in the run-up to the 2008 elections.
They should refocus attention from the home-based defensive strategy by redirecting human and material resources to countering NDC?s international strategy. They should also seek to build alliances with their Conservative partners in Europe. These actions require that Kuffuor and the Party acts on the perceptions and allegations of corruption sweeping the country. Secondly, NPPs international constituents should be more proactive in seeking to build alliances with their European partners since government Ministers on public Missions cannot be seen to be playing party politics with their jobs. Failure to counter NDC?s international strategy will certainly be another chink off the armor of NPP?s 2008 election armor and a vulnerability of the NPP which the NDC could take advantage of with devastating consequences.
Manchester, United Kingdom
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