The Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has backed the founder of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Jerry John Rawlings, for the party to be guided by the principles of integrity and accountability.
He said the party’s current predicaments demand that its members introspect and work to restore its earlier values of probity and accountability.
Speaking at the party’s silver jubilee lecture on Thursday, Alban Bagbin said the party can return to power only after it reverts to its earlier values that made it a better choice for Ghanaians, years ago.
“It is for us to do a self-introspection and try and put a system in place to prevent a third world war… We need to go back for the earlier values. You cannot have democracy without creating the culture of integrity and that is the true genesis of our party but we are jettisoning all,” he said.
The founder of the party, Jerry John Rawlings, during the 38th June 4th revolution anniversary, said Ghanaians voted out the NDC because of sickening greed, selfishness and corruption.
According to Mr. Rawlings, such practices were contrary to the values upheld by the NDC, describing them as a “betrayal of the values of June 4,” which are probity, transparency and accountability.
“Nobody is saying don’t make money, make it good and clean; but not some of the ones I know; sickening, that kind of greed and selfishness, look at where it landed us. Or is it because this government is not behaving the way Kufuor did in his time, so we think we are okay? I know what’s going on. I know some of the things they are running into,” he said.
Following the address, some members of the party have challenged the party’s founder saying the party’s defeat was not caused by the actions of the individuals in government.
But the Nadowli Kaleo Member of Parliament believes the founder’s statement is true.
He lamented that, the NDC despite being a formidable political party many years ago, have lost a lot of goodwill to the advantage of its major opponent and governing party, the New Patriotic Party.
The NDC suffered its worst electoral defeat in the December 2016 polls when its candidate and incumbent President, John Dramani Mahama polled 4,713,277 votes (44.40%) against the NPP’s Nana Akufo-Addo’s 5,716,026 votes (53.85%).
Mr. Bagbin was speaking at an event held at the party’s headquarters ahead of it’s 25th anniversary which officially falls on June 10.
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