Politics of Thursday, 8 May 2014

Source: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie | Ultimate Radio

CPP/PNC merger top on our agenda for 2016 – Samia

The Convention People’s Party (CPP) says talks on a merger with the People’s National Convention (PNC) are set to resume soon.

The two Nkrumaists have on many occasions considered merging to improve the prospects of winning political power. Moves to consummate the union in the run up to the 2012 elections were botched at the last minute due to a lack of support by party members.

The failure was partly attributed to a lack of commitment to the merger.

Nonetheless, the Chairperson of the CPP, Samia Yaba Nkrumah, has told Ultimate Radio the merger is top on the party’s agenda as it prepares for the 2016 elections. She believes this is one sure way to position the party to win an election.

“For some of us, this is a passion for us. It’s something we’ve been advocating for many years, so we are going to resume talks. The truth of the matter is that the election year had distracted us a little; but now that we’ve started reorganizing, we are also going to resume our talks with the PNC and I singled out the PNC because their ideology is the same as ours; Nkumaism, self-reliance, justice and Pan-Africanism and social cohesion as a nation. We hope we will be able to come out with something from our talks. At the very least, political alliance for 2016 and then we take it from there."

“We have started talks with the various committees, but we are soon going to start talks at the level of the national executives, that’s the chairman, general secretaries, together with the unity committees and I think that will give it a push."

Samia Nkrumah says the CPP on its part is taking some steps to make the merger a success.

“We’ve indicated before that some of us are prepared to take a step back in our positions for the sake of that unity. I wouldn’t mind gladly to be the Vice chairman, or Vice National chairman of a united CPP –PNC with my experience over the last four years, having served as an MP for the CPP and now chairperson of the CPP.

“The problem within the CPP is that, there are people within the party who are not working for the party. We have recognized a lack of commitment, lack of loyalty as one of our main weakness and that is why we have proposed various measures including the E- database registration whereby we can easily be in contact with our members up till the polling station,” she noted.