Former President John Mahama has downplayed public speculations of a strained relationship between him and his party founder, President Jerry Rawlings.
According to him, public gestures that suggest the two are at loggerheads are due to Rawlings’ moods.
He said the former President and Founder of the National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) mood sometimes do not make him open up for conversations which makes him “greet in military style and passes.”
Many Ghanaians took to social media recently after a viral video from the recently held 25th anniversary celebration of the country’s 4th Republic showed John Mahama and John Rawlings exchange a cold handshake, just after Mahama exchanged warm pleasantries with former President Kufuor.
Many said the gesture was yet again an indication that the relationship between Rawlings and Mahama was strained. But reacting to the issue on GTV’s current affairs program, Moomen Tonight on Tuesday, John Mahama said it was an issue with Rawlings’ mood swings and that the two related perfectly.
“With President Rawlings, we have a good relation. Recently there has been some speculation in the media and all that. But we should understand the kind of person President Rawlings is. Sometimes he is in the mood where he doesn’t want to engage in any conversation.”
“At the thanksgiving, they were giving all kinds of interpretation to the handshakes. There are some occasions, when he comes, you don’t know what kind of mood in which he is, he greets military style and he passes. But there are some other occasions like I met him in Kpando and we had a very warm handshake and exchanged pleasantries. There are sometimes you sit next to him and he is not in the mood to talk but other times he is in the mood to talk,” he said.
Mahama added that, “you have to learn the mood in which he is and adjust accordingly and I don’t have any problem with President Rawlings, indeed he gave me the opportunities in life.”
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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana