Accra — The gloves are off and the political knives out in the campaign which should lead to presidential and parliamentary elections in Ghana next month.
The first blow in the latest war of words was thrown on Thursday 2 November, when Professor Kofi Awoonor, the national vice chairman of President Jerry Rawlings' National Democratic Congress (NDC) party, addressed a news conference on what he described as "...some dangers from the utterances and behaviour of...the NPP (New Patriotic Party)...our main opponents". He accused the NPP of running a negative propaganda campaign.
A full page transcription of Awoonor's statement, entitled "NPP plans to disrupt the democratic process", appeared in the Daily Graphic, the main pro-government newspaper in Ghana on Monday 6 November.
It prompted a furious response from the NPP which called a counter press conference on Monday morning. The party's national campaign manager, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, rejected all the allegations made in Awoonor's statement. And there are plenty.
Awoonor, who is also a presidential staffer to Rawlings, claimed a number of NPP documents had come into the possession of the NDC which he said reinforced "the NPP's irrational behaviour over the last several months, which I described in our last press conference as "Hitlerite in conception and Goebellian in execution"."
The NDC party vice chairman denounced the NPP, lead by once-defeated presidential hopeful John Kufuor who is standing again. He said the NDC's opponents had conceived of a "Machievellian prescription" and a "well thought out agenda to disrupt the democratic process by violent means if their unbridled quest for political power is not realized through the ballot box".
Awoonor warned against any attempt to create "mayhem" or "disturb the peace and tranquillity of this nation" which he said would be "resolutely resisted by the peace-loving people of Ghana".
At Monday's press conference, Obetsebi-Lamptey echoed the NDC's view of his own party, saying: "They (the NDC) are constantly peddling half truths and lies and half lies and deliberately misinterpreting things that are said to try to heighten this agenda for intimidation."
Awoonor's statement referred to numerous press statements from the NDC, "distilled from half truths and downright lies which are repeated in a constant cacophony in the fond hope that the public will begin to accept them as absolute truths".
Obetsebi-Lamptey's angry retort was that "They (the NDC) feel that the voters will be intimidated and will say that if they don't return the NDC into power, there will be no peace. They whip up all these sentiments and all this heat to give the impression that we are going to war. We are not going to war, we are going to have an election. The election is a peaceful method of changing government or indeed endorsing a government."
Awoonor's statement also accused a number of NPP members, including Hackman Owusu-Agyemang, of nefarious political tactics during the election campaign. Owusu-Agyemang, a member of parliament, a member of the NPP's campaign coordinating committee, and his party's spokesman on Foreign Affairs, hotly denied a claim by Awoonor that he had called the NDC's presidential flagbearer, John Atta-Mills, a "criminal who deserves to be shot".
Atta Mills is the current vice-president of Ghana who is hoping to replace President Jerry Rawlings, the former flight lieutenant, who has been in power since his second coup d'etat in 1981. Rawlings was first elected head of state in 1992 and returned to office in a 1996 poll, which the NPP claims was irregular. The constitution bars Rawlings from standing as president for a third term.
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Speaking to AllAfrica.com after the NPP's Monday press briefing, Owusu- Agyemang challenged Awoonor to prove that he had called the vice-president a criminal and was waiting for his response. The NPP MP said he had referred the matter to his lawyers.
"Such inflammatory statements at this point in our electoral, political history do not augur well for the nation", Owusu-Agyemang added. "He (Awoonor) must desist from such things. He might have his own agenda which he wants to prosecute. But if he does, he must do that decently without bringing people's name into disrepute and putting words into people's mouths".
Seven candidates are competing for the presidency in Ghana in an election scheduled, alongside the parliamentary poll, on 7 December.
