General News of Thursday, 30 June 2016
Source: kasapafmonline.com
Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings
Former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings has revealed that she contested late President Evans Attah Mills in the primaries of the National Democratic Congress because the late president had assured her he would be a one-term president.
“At the time that I contested Professor Mills, he had told us and literally told me and my organisers that he was going to go one term. He told me this more than once; so I knew he was not going to go again, and then the rest is history which doesn’t interest me to talk about.”
Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings contested the then sitting President in the NDC’s 2011 Presidential primaries in a race many described as the most hostile ever in the history of the ‘Umbrella family”.
Speaking to Bola Ray on Starr Chat on Starr FM, Mrs. Rawlings stated that the NDC was prepared to use everything even at the peril of the party to ensure her ambition of becoming President was scuttled.
“The people who were supposed to be the delegates were changed at the last minute. In 1998, a decision was taken by the party of which I was part that every time we are going for Congress, the two women organisers plus one other should always be a 31st December Women’s Movement [member], they made sure they took that out as well. Delegates were not given accreditation to enter the stadium so they couldn’t vote.
“On hindsight, I think I should have drawn attention to the anomalies that were going on. You’ve got Gbevlo Lartey and his people standing there and saying you can’t get in; you definitely can’t get in. I don’t think it was a mistake contesting President Mills.”
President Mills garnered almost 97 percent of votes at the Sunyani congress of the party to beat Mrs. Rawlings.
She later broke off to join the National Democratic Party as the presidential candidate but was disqualified by the Electoral Commission from contesting the national elections on technical grounds.