Confusion Rocks CPP

Seven weeks into its administration, the Samia-led Convention People’s Party (CPP) executive is bound to have a clash with some members of the National Executive Committee (NEC ) about when to hold the Presidential congress to select a flag bearer for the 2012 elections.

Some members of the party purporting to be consisting of one-third of the NEC have advertised in the media that they would hold a NEC meeting on November 30, 2011 at the Du Bois Centre at 10 am to take a definite decision on the date for the congress.

But the Chief Executive of the CPP, Mr Ivor Kobinah Greenstreet, in an interview with the Daily Graphic, said although one-third of the NEC could call for such a meeting, the memo he had received from the so called one-third of the NEC was unsigned and undated and therefore any decision that would be taken would be“null and void ab initio”

He noted that NEC was a formal meeting of the CPP and those unidentified group seeking to organise that meeting should adhere to the process.

According to Mr Greenstreet, their letter should be signed so that the party could verify the authenticity of their signatures as real members of NEC and also for proper notification to be made, coupled with the selection of a venue, mobilisation of appropriate logistics and setting of an agenda.

“Although the party hierarchy respects people’s democratic right, which is also guaranteed by the CPP constitution to be heard, the rank and file should understand that the CPP congress to elect its presidential aspirant for 2012 is not being delayed. The unidentified group cannot hold NEC on their own,” he cautioned.

He explained that the problem of the seeming delay in the holding of the congress to elect a presidential aspirant had occurred because of the new constitution that the party had adopted half way through the four year electoral cycle.

The constitution envisages that the newly elected officers steering the affairs of the CPP for one year before any presidential congress can be held. Even the so-called provision stating that the presidential congress should be held 24 months before national elections started their stewardship nine months even before this new executive took office.

The General Secretary noted that the CPP was therefore finding a middle ground in order for everybody’s interest to be satisfied but surprisingly, the party had not received any communication about all the grievances.

“Yet, someone has been manipulating all these sporadic outburst around the country, thereby washing the party’s dirty linen in public and bringing the name of the CPP into disrepute,” Mr Greenstreet, who did not mention any name, said.

He cautioned those sponsoring these people to beware that it was the same activities which had always engendered disunity and disorganisation which had been at the root of CPP’s woes and made it to secure only one per cent of the total votes cast at every national election in recent times.

He described the people sponsoring those purporting to hold the NEC meeting as “having confusing influence” adding that leadership of the party understood perfectly well that any excessive delay would be prejudicial to any future CPP presidential candidates bid.

Mr Greenstreet reminded those agitating that the party must conduct two outstanding regional congresses in the Western and the Volta regions and also solve the outstanding legal disputes as well as reorganise at all the polling station level .

All these, Mr Greenstreet noted, were geared towards putting the party in a position to avoid getting the one per cent it had been receiving; that would be a thing of the past.