Even if the total leadership of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was subjected to a chemical interrogation, it will be as plain as daylight that the party has no intention officially of disclosing who the running mate for Professor Evans Atta Mills will be as yet. The Ghanaian Observer says NDC insiders are convinced that the party will only make public its running mate "well after the New Patriotic Party flagbearer Congress to be held this year." The reasons, GO was told, are "purely tactical." The sources, which refused to confirm or deny rumours that Betty-Mould Iddrisu, wife of Alhaji Iddrisu Mahama, has been pencilled by the party leadership for the position, told GO bluntly: "Wait till the NPP finishes its flagbearer congress, and then you can speculate and probably compel the party to give you the right answers ... Until then, just take it from me that no one will officially disclose to you who our flagbearer will be ... " our source hinted. The paper said its sources in the party stated that it is party policy not to disclose any information on the matter by "word of mouth or through correspondence, even between the ex-President and the flagbearer, lest that piece of evidence fall into the wrong hands and ends up being made public by the media at the wrong time." Explaining reasons however, as to why the NDC will hold its card close to its chest in the matter of making public the name and face of the running mate for the flagbearer of the leading opposition party, the sources said disclosing the personality now will provide ammunition to the press "to discuss it in all sorts of prejudicial ways as to distract the public from the current crises facing the NPP and for which inefficiencies it must bow out of office in 2008." Continuing, the sources told GO that for now the NDC is happy seeing the NPP and its flagbearer aspirants discussing their own peccadilloes in the press and jettisoning one another in the scramble for the number one slot of the party. "Going public at this juncture will be suicidal and politically unwise; it will be playing into the hands of the NPP, whose spin doctors might start unfavourably analysing the running mate and begin looking for imaginary political sins to nail him or her on .... By the time they think about discussing him or her, there will be so much in terms of political issues on the terrain that the spotlight will not be on him or her alone ... When we have that level field, we will then find it convenient coming out with a name ... I don't think it will be wise to expose our running mate to the heat now ... At that point, when they shoot our running mate, we can also have their running mate to shoot, in the name of fairness ... " Dropping hints on how far the party will go to keep the name secret, he added that "going public with the name could even be after the NPP had declared who their candidate will be ... just the same way they (NPP) handled theirs in the run-up to the 2000 elections, surprising us with the Aliu ticket." Names that have popped up as possible running mate for the NDC flagbearer, Prof. John Evans Atta Mills have been John Mahama, Betty-Mould Iddrisu, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings and the last running mate, Mohammed Mumuni, former MP for Kumbungu. Though there have been official admissions that the NDC, like the NPP, will pick a flagbearer from the North, the NDC has been tight-lipped on who is running with Mills since the last elections, in spite of the fact that Mills' candidacy as flagbearer for 2008 had well been accepted by the party before the Legon flagbearer contest, which he won with an 80 percent margin last year. According to the paper, press-friendly John Mahama, widely tipped by a section of the press for the running mate position, is currently out of the race. He is reported to have been assured by the founder of the NDC for the number one slot in 2012, "because he still has age on his side." The Ghanaian Observer said when it called up Johnson Asiedu Nketia, NDC General Secretary to react to the story, he denied it, saying the party had not yet decided on any date for naming the running mate. "It is not true, the party has not yet decided on any date in mind as at now ... It may be today, tomorrow, in a month's time actually, I don't know the day" he told GO Wednesday afternoon. Source: The Ghanaian Observer