It was bound to happen. Since the elections of 2004, the NPP and NDC have been locked in a fierce battle for power that belies the general claim that it is about service to the people. Neutrals and pundits have been calling for "issues" as a way of diverting attention from the pure power politics and focus on personalities.
It was therefore a comfort to think that a time would surely come when the parties themselves would focus on the issues via their respective manifestos. As if to underline the suspicion that this campaign was all about heat without light, the manifestos took an age to arrive, but arrive they did.
First the People's National Party delivered its campaign to a deafening silence and lack of interest. Next the CPP brought theirs out as well; it was a little better received than the PNC one, but not by much. It is a sign of the times that anything outside the NDC-NPP bifurcated politics hardly registers on the political Richter scale. Things will change, if you ask the CPP gurus and they may well be right, but attention focuses more furiously on the two political juggernauts.
The manifestos of the NDC and NPP were awaited with interest by the public, but now we know that each party awaited the coming of their opponents manifesto than the unveiling of its own. The NPP manifesto came first, which was a bit of a surprise because the NDC selected its presidential candidates months ahead of the NPP and therefore got a putative advantage by hitting the road first.
Be that as it may, the NPP brought out its manifesto amid serious fanfare in Kumasi. The party's spin doctors began to spin and it was hoped that its contents would spilled before the general public through mass media activities in the coming days. But it turned out that the NDC stopped its own campaign to rubbish the NDC manifesto. All that while the NDC was still baking its own manifest in the oven.
One week after the outdooring of the NPP manifesto, the NDC delivered its own at a resplendent pavilion at the Trade fair Site. Not for the first time, the event was upstaged by the NDC Founder and former President Jerry John Rawlings who did some dramatic things onstage. The NDC, of course, praised its own handiwork, which was a good thing to do because the NPP people were lying in wait to thrash it beyond recognition.
Welcome to the War of Manifestos. Instead of the parties telling us about the good things in their own manifestos, their spokespersons of the NPP and NDC have spent almost equal time rubbishing their opponents' manifestos. The two political parties organised press conferences just to denounce their opponents manifestos and accuse each other of lying.
You would think that these negative tactics would annoy the political parties because they prevent the public from knowing what they stand for and what they plan to do. I believe that both the NDC and NPP love this negative tactics because they prevent the public from asking the relevant and important questions about how they are going to implement and pay for the promises in their manifestos.
The parties get away with these tactics because they get a very easy ride from a bemused public and very quiescent media. So far there is very little public discussion of the contents of the respective manifestos while valuable time is spent on what the different parties say about their own and their opponents manifestos.
Thus have we arrived at a point where we know what the NDC thinks and says about the NPP manifesto and we also know what the NPP thinks and says about the NDC manifesto but we don't know the first things about the NDC and NPP manifestos. This is a sign of the times.
source : www.africanelections.org
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