The National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Harona Esseku is determined to keep his party in government for the next 18 years, having spent barely two years already in office.

To him, president Kufuor who seems to have endeared himself into the hearts of many party faithfuls including the national chairman will serve two straight terms, his successor who will be from the NPP will also serve another two terms whilst the next one will do same.

According to the report carried by “National Concord”, Mr. Esseku sees no credible challenge anywhere on the political horizon. He believes Ghana’s main opposition the National Democratic Congress (NDC) is too heavily discredited to stage a comeback anytime soon, and the Convention People’s Party (CPP) which is struggling with organization has lost too much of its support base to other parties to count for now.

“Esseku was dismissive of his NDC counterpart, Dr. Obed Yao Asamoah’s assertion that the NDC would re-capture the Castle (seat of government) come December 2004.”

“Well, I believe he had to say so to make himself feel comfortable. There is no way; I’m being frank here that the NDC can come back in 2004. They may have to wait for a few more elections, I don’t even foresee them coming in 2008. no, 2008 is as impossible as 2004,” Esseku told the paper.

He added, “I’m giving my party about five rounds, yes five, I’m that confident, because they had 20 years even with all the mess they put up. Of course, they were aided by the gun, we are going to be aided by the ballot paper and I think we are going to stay around (at the castle) for five continuous four-year terms.”

Dr. Asamoah’s analysis was that the NPP’s support is mainly urban –based and they are the people who will be affected by the NPP’s penchant for increasing prices and rates left, right and centre and that workers will vote against the party in 2004.

“Well this is a bit of wishful thinking. These workers, sometimes we take them for granted, they are not simpletons. They saw that from January 2000 to December 2000, the cedi fell from three thousand to the dollar to seven thousand at the end of the year, an increase of four thousand.

According to Mr. Esseku, Ghanaian workers are realizing that the purchasing power of what they have now is taking them a bit further. So if the minority NDC is “hoping to come back to power because of the economy, of course we came to power because of the economy, they completely messed it, and we are aware that it was in a mess, we’ve taken over.

“We also know that if we should treat the economy as they did, it is seriously going to affect us and we have our eyes open and we are going back to work hard to ensure that the economy moves from the point we saw it to three, four, five steps higher; higher enough to become visible for everybody to see. Even, for the person who believes he is not able to be as comfortable as he would have wished, he will still see that there have been some improvement.”

Esseku is emphatic that by December 2004, all Ghanaians would see that the economy had become better than it was in 2000 and on that basis, the NPP would be voted back to power, alongside concrete evidence of infrastructure development all around.

He described the NDC chairman, as someone who could lead his party to victory one day, but not while both of them remained active in politics, as each is nearing his 70s.

“Given time, he could lead his people but I don’t think he would have that time to lead his people to victory. Right now, he will be able, I believe, to bring a bit of sanity into the NDC. That I trust he can do. But I’m hoping that for the number of years that he had, I would remain in politics, I will be in government and he will be in opposition,” confident Esseku said.

Of the CPP, Esseku said, “they are now in tatters.” “Yes tatters, they contested all the 200 seats in 2000 and they won one.” He said, although the CPP used to be a big party, their woes stem from the fact that Ghana is only big enough for two major parties.

Buttressing his point, the NPP chairman said 90 per cent of those in the NDC are CPP, so if the CPP wins, the NDC will go bankrupt. But he does not think that the CPP is asserting itself enough to be able to put the NDC aside yet.

Meanwhile the Concord also reports of the only CPP Member of Parliament and first deputy speaker, Freddie Blay’s drumming of support for the Kufuor administration.

The paper quotes him as saying that the CPP must not spread its resources by contesting all 200 constituencies, but rather concentrate on about 50 constituencies where they are sure they will win.

Mr. Blay who is a member of the Parliamentary Action Group of the CPP whose recent pronouncements on the future direction of the party has sparked off controversy, said the CPP should not even consider fielding a presidential candidate.

He said the PAG, which includes leading members like Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom, Mike Eghan, Kojo Armah, Alabira Ibrahim is worried about the weak state of the party and think that the party can only move forward if it adopts the proposals put forward by the group.

To the deputy speaker, the party’s top priority in the 2004 elections should be how to increase its representation in Parliament, and this they can do by negotiating with parties like the NPP and the PNC on the marginal seats.

According to Blay if such an idea had been adopted in the 2000 elections the party would have won seats in constituencies like Komenda-Edina-Eguafo, Mpohor-Wassa, Mion and Nzema West.

Meanwhile, the publicity chairman of the party, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. has said that the proposal by the PAG is detrimental to the survival and political ambitions of the CPP.

To him, members of the PAG are out to protect their business interest and positions in the NPP administration.

Mr. Pratt, also managing editor of “The Insight” said the loyal CPP members would resist the proposals of the PAG at any cost in order to keep the party intact.