Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings to be acclaimed flagbearer of NDP
Former first lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, will be acclaimed as the flagbearer of the National Democratic Party (NDP) at the party’s delegates congress slated for Friday and Saturday.
The acclamation will take place at a congress to be held in Accra between September 4, and September 5, this year.
It is the third she will be acclaimed as the leader of the party she founded in 2012 after parting ways with the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the party her husband, J.J. Rawlings, founded and won two elections with in 1992 and 1996.
Mr Rawlings, who has since been at almost every event of the NDP, has been announced as the guest speaker for the event.
The General Secretary of NDP, Alhaji Mohammed Frimpong, in a statement said strict COVID-19 safety protocols will be observed at the two-day event.
“This Friday because of COVID-19 protocols, five [delegates] each from each of the 16 regions will be trooping into Accra for an in-house session to endorse the flagbearer and national executives.
“And on Saturday from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm will be the outdooring our national officers, including the flagbearer,” he said.
About the NDP
The National Democratic Party is a political party founded in October 2012 by Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, wife of former President Jerry John Rawlings.
In 2011, she contested the NDC presidential primary to replace sitting President J.E.A Mills as the party’s presidential candidate, but it ended in a dramatic fashion as she won just about 3% of the votes.
She accused the NDC of manipulating the elections to favour the late Prof Mills.
Mrs Rawlings then left the party to form the NDP, but that same year the Electoral Commission (EC) disqualified her and 11 other presidential candidates for failing to file the appropriate nomination documents.
There was a similar challenge with her nomination forms in 2016, but it was rectified after a court order.
She thus became the first woman to contest a presidential election in Ghana.
Before then, the woman known as ‘Iron Lady’ in Ghana politics cut her political teeth, massing up thousands of women behind her husband during the days of the revolution, which her husband led as a military leader from December 31, 1992, to January 7, 1993.
Her vehicle of mobilisation was the 31st December Women Movement, which attracted thousands of women.