Accra, Sept. 20, GNA- Professor George Hagan, former Presidential Candidate of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) on Saturday said he did not offer himself as candidate for the 2004 elections because the party has no proper mechanism for sourcing funds.
"The CPP today has no means of generating resources, which is the strength of any political party, that is why I did not offer myself this year, besides, I thought after our defeat in the 2000 elections the resources of the party will improve but it didn't, " he said.
Prof Hagan, who was speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at the CPP National Delegates' Congress at the Central Cafeteria of the University of Ghana, Legon, said when he was elected to lead the Party, he was virtually left alone to find resources to conduct the campaigns. He said CPP has failed to reorganise itself after the last elections, which had painted a bleak picture for the way forward but said "the way forward now is to organise, organise and reorganise and we need money for that because whether we win or not we have an obligation to keep the party alive.
"That obligation demands that we find resources to organise to create unity within the party and move to create credibility to enable Ghanaians to see the CPP as a potential party because if we don't create that environment whatever we do will be in vain," he said.
He spoke against the practice where a political party was funded by an individual saying that bred dictators.
Asked what role he would be playing in the party as the Former Flag Bearer, Prof. Hagan, who is now the Chairman of the National Commission on Culture under the New Patriotic Party government, said he would not say much but sees himself as an ordinary member of the party.
Mr Stephen Ntim, NPP National First Vice Chairman, who was representing his party at the Congress, said NPP was ever ready to enter into an alliance with the CPP provided they come out with such proposals as it is being speculated in some circles.
He said both the CPP and NPP have a common traditional political nucleus having suffered coup d'etats.
Mr Ntim said: "God being so good, democracy has come back to Ghana so it is a shared responsibility of both parties, which are the offspring of those previous governments, to ensure that democracy thrives".