The Managing Editor of the Al-Hajj newspaper, Alhaji Iddrisu Bature has asked the National Executive of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) to strip former President Rawlings of the "party founder" position. “President Rawlings today has lost every moral authority to remain the founder of the NDC (and) I think the party should strip him of that position”. Alhaji Bature said former President Rawlings as the founder and chairman of the Council of Elders of the party who is expected to remain neutral is rather vigorously campaigning for his wife to challenge President J.E.A. Mills in the upcoming presidential primaries of the party in Sunyani. Rawlings while endorsing the candidature of his wife, Nana Konadu at her campaign launch at the International Conference Centre on Wednesday, May 4, to contest the party’s flagbearership stated emphatically that the NDC started losing the 2012 elections right from the first week Professor Mills became president. He also alledged that the National Executives of the party had to postpone the delegates congress twice to buy time and bribe delegates who will be voting at the July 8-10 congress in order to secure victory for "some people". But Alhaji Bature while Speaking on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen programme Thursday, stated that “by openly endorsing a candidate in the election, by openly campaigning for that candidate and then by openly denouncing the other candidate; President Rawlings can never hold himself up as founder of the party anymore”. According to him, the founder by endorsing his wife to contest the sitting president for the party's flagbearershgip position is in a conflict of interest situation which will not be in the interest of the party. Alhaji Bature advised former President Rawlings to relinquish his position as founder of the NDC and become the campaign manager for his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings. The NDC sympathizer also urged the Rawlingses to learn some lessons from what happened to the former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo who had everything but was later disgraced because he was power drunk. “I think President Rawlings should learn from President Laurent Gbagbo; there is time for everything. What is happening to the Rawlingses for me is very dangerous (and if care is not taken) the Rawlingses will destroy themselves,” he warned. Story by: Adwoa Gyasiwaa/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana