*Freddy Blay endorses Akufo-Addo against CPP flagbearer

Crisis seems to have rebounded to the perennially-troubled Convention People’s Party (CPP) just when the campaign of its flagbearer, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, suggests the party is keying up for greater things in the forthcoming December 2008 elections.

The self-inflicted sword of Damocles this time has to do with the reported endorsement of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) colourful flagbearer, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo, by the top-notch CPP MP for Elembelle and 1st Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Hon. Freddy Blay, which has caught leaders of the CPP fuming with rage.

Blay reportedly endorsed Akufo-Addo, with whom he has a long standing friendship and working relationship as the best presidential material among the lot seeking to take over power from the outgoing President in this year’s elections.

Speaking at an NPP rally in Aiyinase in the Western region, Freddy Blay was reported to have stressed that Akufo-Addo is “a comrade not only for the cause of freedom but for development,” adding that, “he is an ally I will always work with.”

He is reported to have handed down a ringing endorsement of Akufo-Addo’s candidature.

Now the CPP, whose flagbearer himself actively campaigned and supported the candidature of President John Agyekum Kufuor for re-election in the 2004 presidential elections against his own party’s candidiate, Mr. George Opesika Aggudey, is breathing fire on the neck of Blay.

Nduom, Blay and a few other activists of the CPP went against conventional wisdom and insisted at the time that the CPP was not ready to win the presidential elections despite the insistence by party executives that their acts amounted to indiscipline and would undermine the Aggudey’s candidature.

Now the tables have turned, and Nduom and his team now say Blay’s endorsement of the NPP presidential candidate is an act of “indiscipline” which must not go unpunished.

They claim Blay as a member of the CPP should be campaigning for Nduom, who significantly also campaigned for the 2004 flagbearer of the NPP in that year’s presidential elections.

Other key CPP activists have reportedly called for the exclusion of Freddy Blay from the yet-to-be-slated primaries of the CPP in the constituency he currently represents in Parliament.

A report by JOY FM on it website www.myjoyonline.com over the weekend captured the CPP Chairman, Mr. Ladi Nylander, distancing the party from Blay’s position.

In his view, even though the CPP has talked about alliances when possible, the party has only considered the Peoples National Convention (PNC) in its alliance calculations and ruled out any possible alliances with either the NPP or NDC.

“Talks of an alliance do not include the NPP and the NDC,” he said, noting that the CPP does not associate itself therefore, with Blay’s position.

The highest decision making organ of the party, the Central Committee, may meet on the issue and take a decisive decision on the matter soon, JOY FM reported.