"NDC leadership were full of themselves" - Appiah

Political Activist Arnold Appiah has said the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was not ready for the 2016 elections hence the humiliating defeat that has seen the New Patriotic Party (NPP) assume the running of government.

“And whether you put up 100 infrastructures or even build all the roads with gold, when it comes to elections, it’s a different ball game, the approach is always different”, he said.

Mr Appiah’s comments synced with the trending discussions on the post-election investigation by the Prof. Kwesi Botchwey Committee tasked by the NDC to find out what might of have caused the defeat of the Mahama-led administration.

Arnold Appiah told Melody News’ Joe Bright, the NDC neglected the grassroots which subsequently created apathy among supporters to work for the party.

“What basically happened was that the NDC was not prepared for the election, and I say so, on the grounds that before they could say fiat, most of our branches or the polling stations were dead”.

He further said “the top executives distanced themselves from the grassroots, hence created a strong apathy and that apathy is what got us punished”.

Mr Appiah again noted that “the leadership, both in government and in party, were full-of-themselves and thought that just the mention of the President would translate into vote”.

According to him, the NDC “neglected the party at the grassroots level, and concentrated more at the top with the kind of flamboyant campaigns, distributing T-shirts and not going to the grassroots to explain the policies and programs, no matter how hard or harsh the programs were and its effect in the long term point of view”.

He further observed that “everybody left the voters to their fate and expected that per what they see in their constituencies, they should automatically tend to vote or automatically convince them”.