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Ex-President Jerry John Rawlings has finally spoken about the Sunyani congress of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to elect a flagbearer for the 2012 elections, chastising President John Evans Atta Mills for using cash to outdo his wife Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings. Rawlings added that President Mills �is going to pay a price for it next year� for manipulating the NDC congress, leading to the defeat of his wife. Speaking on the BBC Focus on Africa programme yesterday, Mr. Rawlings, who until now had kept mute over developments in the watershed internal election of the party in which some 3000 delegates voted, said his wife went into the race as a result of pressure from delegates across the country. On the disappointing show by his wife, he said it is the party and government which should be held responsible for the development, having pumped so much cash into the venture. The phenomenon of putting fear in delegates or as he put it, �the fear factor�, was amply used by Mills to cow delegates to vote for him. The fear factor, he said, was mostly used by governments in elections. As at last year, his wife, he said, was ahead of her competitor President Mills, holding some 82 percent of the votes in a survey. For those who have wondered what the next move the Rawlingses would make in this chess-like game of NDC politics, yesterday�s interview provided the answer. Many political analysts viewed the poor showing of Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings in the Sunyani congress as an orchestrated attempt by the leadership of the party to humiliate the one-time Air Force fighter pilot and his wife. Had she withdrawn from the race, the delegates would have demanded the reason which informed such a decision, he noted. He and his wife, Rawlings said, are not going to quit politics in as much as there are iniquities in the governance of the country. For now though, �we are taking a break�, he said, adding that when Nana Konadu is done with a book she is authoring, �we would decide on what to do next� even though he ruled out forming another party. Mr Rawlings said he is also writing a book and that �we took up the fight in response to calls by delegates�. For those who consider the decision of his wife to enter the race as a mistake, he said, �This is the usual talk of little minds. It does not matter whether we are in office or not to fight the socio-economic challenges. �President Mills and his government are committing the ills of the past,� he stressed, adding that at the appropriate time, he would tell the world what their next step would be. Meanwhile, those who thought the defeat of Nana Konadu meant a total annihilation of the former first couple from Ghanaian politics may have to revise their notes. At the weekend, the founder of the NDC and his wife pulled a surprise at the Accra International Conference Centre in what many have described as a �bold� show when they attended an awards and dinner dance ceremony. The event, which took place on Friday evening, was to climax the third conference of West African Women in Leadership Conference (WAWLC). Halfway through the programme, Mr Rawlings entered the packed hall amidst a thunderous applause from the audience, some of whom cheered him on. He entered moments after his wife, Mrs Rawlings, who he affectionately calls �Naana�, had been honoured, to present her with a large and colourful bouquet of flowers before the couple hit the floor with exquisite dance steps that drew admiration from the international audience. Characteristic of him, Mr. Rawlings took a swipe at the Mills-led NDC administration when offered an opportunity to speak, hoping that the government would wake up to the realization that destroying the fabric of Ghanaian society through intimidation would make it difficult to ignite their courage to fight the 2012 elections. �Whenever we have timidity at certain parts of government or party machinery and they feel intimidated by the courage of the people, then what they end up doing is that they begin to deflate the fire and the energy that they will need to cross some of the most difficult obstacles,� the former President stated. He said, �If we do not make and recognise that women in Africa are as much entitled to the freedom and justice that we are claiming for ourselves, I am afraid we will always fall behind and not be able to make the rapid progress that we should be making.� Mrs Rawlings, who is also the President of the 31st December Women�s Movement, was honoured by the conference with an award for her exemplary role in women�s development, creation of grassroots structures for women and serving as the mother of the nation. The conference, among other things, agreed to ensure that representatives table reports to policy-making bodies of their individual governments, restructure the power of women for advocacy, encourage women to stand for legislative positions and boost the interest of the physically challenged in women advocacy.