David Alan Painstil Elmina
21 October 2008
Former President Jerry John Rawlings has called on the people in the Central Region to vote massively for Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, the Presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), to free the country from poverty and misery.
Speaking at a well-attended rally after a picnic in Elmina on Sunday, Rawlings told the teeming crowd not to be deceived by the vain propaganda of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), but to vote for the NDC and bring them back to power to ensure freedom and justice.
He said in 2004, the NPP stole the election verdict after it had realised that its popularity had dipped after 2003, following an international survey that was conducted, which put NDC ahead of NPP by 70%.
Rawlings said Ghanaians decided to kick NPP out in 2004, but they were fast to put in a perfect rigging machine because Ghanaians were thinking that NPP will give them free and fair elections just like what NDC did in 1992 to 2000 elections.
According to Rawlings, President John Agyekum Kufuor and his cronies did not use gun to win power nor money, but came into office through lies and poisoning of minds, and yet they failed to deliver when they won power.
He wondered why NPP was afraid of handing over power through free and fair elections, adding that because they had committed sins, they were afraid to hand over power.
Rawlings advised all the regions, especially Central Region to be vigilant on the day of voting so that their last chance will not slip away through rigging.
He reminded the people of a similar warning he gave them after a keep-fit in 2004 in Cape Coast, where he said NDC had won but it was up to them to be vigilant. He urged the NDC supporters not to be scared of the video footage of NPP rallies, because they were bought crowds who were paid GH¢20 and GH¢10.
He added that NPP used about 200 bus loads of people for the Kasoa and Takoradi rallies.
But the NDC, he said, has been receiving genuine crowds because the people were willing to liberate Ghana from the shackles of poverty and misery of the NPP.
Mr Samuel Vallis Akyianu, Central Regional NDC chairman thanked Rawlings for visiting the region and urged the teeming supporters to go out in the same manner on election day to vote the party to victory.
Mrs Veronica Essuman Nelson, 2004 NDC Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem (KEEA) candidate, urged the supporters not to be deceived by NPP propaganda that a vote for Mills is a vote for Rawlings, indicating that Rawlings has finished his work.
The KEEA NDC parliamentary candidate, Dr. Joseph Samuel Annan, called on the people to vote for him and Prof. Mills to ensure the total liberation of Ghanaians from poverty.
Anita Desousa, NDC Deputy National Women's Organiser, admonished the people not to give their voters identity cards out to people who come around to register them for loans and the National Health Insurance Scheme.
Kofi Adams, NDC Deputy National Youth Organiser, urged the people to vote massively for Prof. Mills, so as to make the region proud of having a President of their own.
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