Please don’t underestimate the NPP – Formal President Rawlings

Former President Jerry John Rawlings and founding father of the incumbent National Democratic Congress (NDC), has told the governing party that the 2016 elections will not be an easy task.
Ghana’s former President, who spoke for few minutes, also cautioned the NDC not to act like members of the opposition NPP if they want to stay in power for long. He continued to say:

“Let me just give you one point. The NPP cannot be underestimated, you know it and I know it. They’ve been in existence for a long time and have been changing their names up till this day. The nature of who they are, and what they are and where they’ve come from, it’s something they are happy with and they will be there for a long time. 
The task ahead of you won’t be as easy task. I will reserve what I have to say till after the elections when I will come around the country to share with you how I think we could restore the kind of strength that can take us well into the future. There are certain weaknesses that we need to deal with. .”

The calculation I want to put before you is that, by virtue of who and what they are, their mannerisms, their character, will necessarily give rise to what you and I are in the NDC. In other words, by virtue of who we are; where we’ve come from, how we came about into being, I keep saying, we cannot afford to fight them on their terms.”

He admonished that; “It’s important that we fight them on our terms. What are those terms? In other words, let’s not mimic their behaviour. Let us reach into the principles and the values they emerged out of the circumstances that gave birth to us. And if we can hold onto those principles and those values, we will move way into the future and no one can ever defeat us. We will ride and override any obstacle as we did in the past. Mimic them as some of them are doing and we will run into problems. Let’s have a clean clear and stable election. I wish you all the best, get back home in one piece, no accidents,” the former President concluded.