EMBARK ON MOBILISATION (PAGE 13, JUNE 11, 2010)

CONSTITUENCY and Polling station executives of the Peoples National Convention, (PNC), in the Upper East Region have been tasked to undertake a grassroot mobilisation drive of members to reposition the party and make it a viable third force of the Ghanaian political scene.
A policy analyst of the party, Mr Atik Mohammed made the call at Bolgatanga where the party held a day’s seminar for Regional and Constituency Executives.
Also in attendance were all PNC candidates in the region who contested the last general elections.
The strategic seminar was aimed at providing the party operatives with skills and knowledge relevant for grassroot mobilisation towards winning election in Ghana.
It was organised by the PNC with support from the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) and the Netherlands Institute for Multi-party Democracy, (NMID).
Speaking at the opening of the seminar, Mr Atik Mohammed said a post-mortem of the PNCs performance in the 2008 general election revealed failure to embark on massive grassroot mobilisation accounted for the poor performance of the PNC.
According to him, the party had decided to embark on a series of capacity building workshops to ensure that the party structures at all levels were revived. “This is in view of the important role grass root mobilisation plays in ensuring victory” Mr. Mohammed said.
He was optimistic that with effective grassroot mobilisation the Party would increase its parliamentary seats adding that “"Let's fight hard to surprise Ghanaians who have all along held the view that that the NPP and the NDC are the only two dominant parties in the country”
Speaking on the topic, “the Importance of grassroots mobilisation,” Mr. Mohammed said it ensures that the party’s visibility is enhanced and help in the expansion of its support base. “By effectively marshalling grassroots support, we can conquer some of the negative perceptions which have worked against us for some time now.” He said.
Mr Henry Fatchu, the Upper East Regional Secretary of the PNC, who spoke on "How to ensure effective grassroots mobilisation at the constituency level for victory in 2012”, reminded the participants that without resources, human and capital, logistics, effective communication and campaign strategy among others, no party could be seriously considered in terms of good results.
He said the party at the constituency level should have an effective executive, a strong campaign team, a research and monitoring team, fund-raising team and persons who could authoritatively communicate the party vision and mission to woo the voters, stressing that without these structures in place, the good plans of the party would only be in their manifestos.
The National Youth Organiser of PNC, Mr Emmanuel Wilson said the PNC with two seats in parliament out of the total of 260 seats may be the second largest opposition in the country but it needed to work hard to increase its representation in the legislative arm of government to contribute effectively to the governance of the country.
He said to revive and strengthen the party structures at all levels for victory in 2012, there must be a review of the party’s constitution to make it stronger. He also urged the leadership of the party to educate the members on the ideals of the PNC as well as the involvement of leadership in community based activity such as sports, clean-up exercises and other social events to propagate the ideals of the party as a way of wooing people to buy into the philosophy of the PNC to enable the party win the next general elections.
The Upper East Regional Chairman of the Party, Alhaji Baba Mohammed expressed the hope that the polling station and constituency executives would put their learned skills into practice after the seminar to enable the party to win more supporters in the region.