It seems the squabbles within the ruling National Democratic Congress are far from over. In the latest development, Former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings has taken a swipe at National Executives of the party, accusing them of hypocrisy and double standards. The former first lady questions why the General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia popularly known as General Mosquito, chastised her publicly over purported reports that she intended contesting President Mills for the party’s flagbearer spot but spared the President who is on record to have explicitly expressed interest in running again for the presidency in 2012 on more than one occasion. The NDC’s constitution requires that presidential primaries are held at least two years before a national general election. Outside that period, no member is expected to declare presidential interest. The Party’s Functional Executive Committee (FEC) urged Mrs Rawlings to publicly dissociate herself from a group of foot soldiers who printed her posters and splashed them across the country in an apparent attempt to stampede her into contesting for the flagbearer slot of her party. Johnson Asiedu Nketia in a subsequent interview with Citi News said Mrs Rawlings refused to heed to the party’s call, adding that such posturing was alien to the party’s constitution. Speaking at a workshop with purported executives of the Greater Accra branch of the party’s Tertiary Institution Network [TEIN] on Tuesday, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, who did not confirm if she would run against President Mill or not, wondered why the provisions of the party’s constitution were being applied in a discriminatory manner. “The party has a constitution that says that two years to the general elections we should have a congress and choose a flagbearer…the general secretary says nobody should declare until the ban is lifted…so if this is in the constitution does it apply to one or two people or it applies to everybody,” she asked. Mrs Rawlings also alleged that some of the party’s National Executives who are currently at the helm of affairs are not true NDC members and thus questions their loyalty and motives. Suspicions of Mrs Rawlings’s interest in contesting President Mills for the party’s flagbearer slot started in June 2010 when some party supporters brandished her banners with campaign messages at Tamale during an event to mark the June 4 uprising anniversary. Unlike Vice President John Mahama who has publicly declared he would “never run” against President Mills, Mrs Rawlings’s silence seems to confirm such suspicions within the party. Some party executives wondered if her husband – Mr Rawlings’s – unceasingly harsh criticisms of President Mills are part of a grand scheme to court disaffection for the Government while preparing the way for her to cash in on the spoils. But Mrs Rawlings told the TEIN executives on Tuesday that the only way to make the Mills administration perform is to be critical of the President and his functionaries. “We have to be critical of the government, if that is what is going to make the government to properly work for us, because of handout the people are quiet, and because of small money the people are quiet” she said. Source: Citifmonline.com