The Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper, Abdul-Malik Kweku Baako Jnr. has disclosed that he voted for the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) during the 2016 elections.
According to him, even though he is a member of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) he ditched it when it matters most.
Delivering a lecture on the 13th Kronti ne Akwamu lecture organised by the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) Ghana on the theme “Search for Accountability: Government Under the Fourth Republic” he said: “Unfortunately I’ve told the CPP that I can’t follow them, they don’t agree so I vote NPP. Yes, because the other alternative is the NDC and I can’t, so I vote NPP. That’s the truth, you can call that bias, I can live with it”.
According to the veteran journalist, he does not like the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) as a party.
“I’ll be dishonest if I say for instance I like the NDC or I endorse the NDC, I’ll be dishonest. Don’t take me seriously. I don’t, for good reasons, the party I mean,” he said.
He, however, observed that “when an NDC administration is in government and it initiates policies that are positive and progressive, I support them, those policies, and I’ve done that many times and a lot of my friends in the NPP get angry with me and they attack me left right centre … but when it comes to my political stance on a party like NDC [I don’t like them] because of their genesis.”
“You see, they overthrew our party (CPP) in the third Republic and then when they came, they formed three or four parties and today the CPP is in the belly of the NDC virtually. Yes, 90 percent of their constituencies that they hold are traditional CPP constituencies. It is going to take a long time to fight to regain our strength so I have a problem with NDC and then the coup d’état that brought the PNDC into being; it was a matter of conviction, matter of principle, I went to jail for that, for opposing them, I was in jail for two years, just because of the opposition to the coup …
“…And my own very good friend former President Rawlings, also I have a little difficulty with. I like him personally, he is a fantastic personality, socially, but his politics I detest,” Mr Baako added.
