Mr. George Opare Addo, National Youth Organiser of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has asked members of the Tertiary Education Institution Network (TEIN) to refocus on strengthening branches as part of efforts to win the 2024 general elections.
He said the party’s chances of winning the 2024 general elections and other subsequent elections largely depended on a vibrant grassroots, committed, dedicated, and determined to the cause of the party.
Mr. Addo made the appeal at a national TEIN forum with former TEIN executives in Cape Coast on Saturday.
He downplayed the misconception that working for the party meant hopping from one radio or TV station to the other and charged them not to sit on the fringes, but move into serious grassroots mobilisation for massive electoral victory in 2024.
“Today, we credit people who speak for the party on radio and TV stations as the people working for the NDC, so it has become the norm that everyone wants to find space in the media.
“Meanwhile, research has shown that it contributes only five percent of electoral fortunes. The real work is at the grassroots because our challenges are similar but not the same everywhere in the country,” he noted.
Mr. Addo underscored the need for the branch executives to touch base with the electorates and explained why the NDC was the better option to save the country from the economic abyss.
That, he noted, required an effective and efficient communication strategy tailored to suit various segments of the society and implored all TEIN members to play active roles in order to achieve that target.
The National Youth Organiser also could not fathom why many party sympathizers had shifted attention to leadership at the top, saying it required strong party machinery to win elections but not an individual.
“Election is not won on a silver platter but with well-lubricated machinery. Politics is not about individuals so you can have the best candidate, but if the machinery that should lead you into winning is not well oiled, you will fail as it happened in the 2016 and 2020 elections,” he cautioned.
Some TEIN members in an interview after the programme advocated for more support and welfare mechanisms from the party to attract others to their fold and pledged to work hard to return the party to power in 2024.
However, in a reaction to this story, Mr. Theophilus Agyemeng, a member of the BringBackJM Network has expressed disappointment in Mr. Opare Addo, saying that he had failed in leading the youth into winning the 2020 election.
According to him, prior to the 2020 elections, there were many concerns from supporters of the NDC regarding the visibility of Mr. Opare Addo. Many claimed he was barely seen at party programmes, a situation that resulted in the Youth Wing of the NDC attacking him on various media platforms.
He, therefore, called on all current and future executives of the NDC to stop paying lip services to the job they put up themselves to do for the party and rather get into real actions.
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