*THE CPP MUST NOT RETREAT AND MUST NOT SURRENDER*

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Admittedly, the last December 7th 2012 election results is the worst defeat the Convention People’s Party (CPP) has recorded since Ghana returned to constitutional rule in 1992.

Only 20,323 voters cast their votes for the CPP out of a total eligible voting population of 14 million and over. The CPP even lost its only seat in Parliament and its renowned organizational capabilities failed to assert itself this time round.

Many factors contributed to this disastrous defeat. Topical among those factors is the never ending sabotaging activities of the party’s detractors and ideological opponents who, working in concert with both internal and external collaborators continue to subvert and undermine the efforts of the CPP in the struggle to win back political power once again in Ghana. Those who in 1966 plotted the overthrow of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah are still not content to allow the political party has formed and led the unfettered freedom to regroup to support and once again vie for political power.

Another damaging factor to the public image and electoral fortunes of the CPP was the conspiratorial and highly reprehensible departure of Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom from his topmost position as the sitting flagbearer of the CPP to form his own political party a few weeks to the election. Dr. Nduom hurried departure, taking along with him many so called leading members of the CPP at the national, regional and grassroot levels was planned as sabotaging move to ruin the electoral fortunes of the CPP.

That the CPP was able to put its act together after Dr. Nduom’s depature and be able to take part in the 2012 elections was in itself a remarkable organizational achievement and a vivid testimony of the party’s unsinkable destiny and its incredible nack for survival. In this successful recovery effort the greatest credit must go to the party’s national chairperson, Hon Samia Yaba Nkrumah who was highly instrumental in organizing a successful national congress soon after Dr. Nduom and his gang of political fortune seekers had left. Dr. Nduom fled out of the CPP without even preparing any handing over notes. Under Hon. Nkrumah’s leadership, the CPP was able for the first time since 1992 to field as many as 147 parliamentary candidates for the last election. It is her total commitment to the Party’s destiny which cost Hon. Samia her Jomoro seat.

It is rather unfortunate that the result of the 2012 election has engendered so much controversy, recrimination and suspicion threatening the peace and security of the nation. The CPP must have reason to believe that the Eelectoral Commission in whom the nation vested so much confidence and resources was not able, like Julius Ceasar’s wife to rise above suspicion is its own inventor of evidence in support of itself. Having failed to put the results of the 2012 election beyond doubt, the Electoral Commission must forever live with guilt that when the nation needed them most, they failed in their duty, placing as results of the 2012 election beyond doubt, the Electoral Commission must, they failed in their duty, placing as a result the peace and security of this nation at considerable risk.

Furthermore, the CPP must believe that while its ideological outlook and economic strategies designed for the nation are politically correct the Party failed, once again, to convince our compatriots of the genuineness of the views we hold. This however, should not give rise to recrimination and counter accusation. It is rather the time for deepening the Party resolve and stealing its convictions. The Party must believe it represents an idea whose time must come. It represents the unifying force needed today in an otherwise polarized and deeply divided society.

The CPP as the pioneer political party which first exercised political power in Ghana, inherited from the departing colonial government a highly divided society with tribes and ethnic entities fiercely guarding their unique identity and independence. The Party must know more than any other Party the dangers inherent in tribal politics. The fight against tribalism and ethnocentrism required a high degree of forensic intellect, political sagacity shrewd statecraft and high sense of political engineering to put in place the nation state called Ghana. The CPP more than any political party in Ghana should therefore have a vested interest in nation stability harmony and in peacefulco-existence and advise the nation accordingly.

Nearly fifty years after the overthrow of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the CPP has watched in dismay the emergence of tribally fuelled politics and ethnically formulated policies aimed apparently at projecting the interests of some tribes above others. The nation’s public and para-statal institutions appear to be massively corrupted and rendered inefficient, giving way to rather unorthodox methods of employing new officers through brazen acts of nepotism, bribery and corruption instead of recruitment on merit, competence, valid qualification, justice and fairness. We tell more lies to each other each day than we tell the truth, and if telling lies were an admirable art form, our nation today will be leading the rest of the world in the production of great new Rembrants and Picasso art forms.

The CPP must continue to fight for political power and for the opportunity to address some of the hydra – headed problems facing the nation today. The Party must not give in to those who join its ranks only to exploit its great historical image as a platform for achieving their own petty selfish ambitions. The Party must also purge from its ranks those who join because the platform of other leading political parties is already full. It must also close its doors to those who see in politics the opportunity to amass quick personal wealth.

The CPP has no World Bank and no massive captive ethic constituencies to rely upon to regain political power in Ghana. The party nevertheless exists more in the hearts and minds of the generality of the population. It must therefore seek to attract into its membership citizens “who are modest dedicated, honest and detribalized; citizen’s “who can submerge the self to the service of Ghana and to mankind; those who abhor greed and detest vanity and corruption; and members whose humility and integrity constitute the source of their strength and their greatness”.

The CPP must continue to hold its principled stand on national, international and moral issues. It should not give up on its vision of a United Africa, the Party’s own brain child which appears abandoned since 1966. It should fend off and fight off political ideologies of a deceptive or of an opposite nature. It must continue to believe in forming electoral arrangements only when such a compromise is seen as in the best interest of Ghana. The Party should not abandon its core values and fundamental principles; and where compromises become necessary they must be seen and be understood as a tactical move for self-preservation.

The CPP must have no intention what so ever to merge with or be taken over by any political party in Ghana. The Party must have no permanent allies. The CPP has only permanent interests. That is why it must not heed the call to stampede it into any form of merger with the NDC or with any other political party in Ghana. Such a call must be dismissed as bogus, fraudulent and mischevious.

To be able to capture political power in Ghana, the CPP must place its enduring faith and confidence in the Ghanaian worker who possesses the potential to produce all the wealth this nation requires if given the necessary intruments for production. The Party should not entrust the worker’s destiny to the whims and the speculative gambling instincts of private capital. It must look for political power and for the opportunity to tie the worker’s productive capacity to his salary wages and remunerations not hid single spine. When given political power the CPP must move the enormous might and creative potential and capacity of the state to the center as the main engine of growth. The Party should never forget that an unemployed or unemployed Ghanaian is potentially a part of the nation’s asset wasting away.

Relying overtly on loans from the World Bank, the IMF and China alone can never grow the economy of its nation. The Party should also plan ahead to bring back the numerous factories and productive ventures which were sold for pittance or allowed to rot after 1966. It must also be ready to lay new plans for the rapid expansion of the economy of the nation to meet the exploding population growth. It must examine new ways of meeting rising social expectations and expanding consumption pattern of our modern technological age.

The CPP’s mission in Ghana and vision for the nation is ideologically different from and incomparable with that of any political party in this country. That is why it must not seek to merge with any political entity. The Party must never give up or accept defeat. The CPP must not retreat and it must not surrender.

Usually it gets darkest before dawn, the dawn when the average Ghanaian worker will wake up to the realization that the solution to the problems he faces in life lies beyond the limiting confines of his tribal ethnic and traditional origins which over the years have often directed his voting habits and influenced his electoral preferences. That new dawn will be the time when he will be ideologically competent and ready to make that inevitable paradigm shift to become the new social being which the nation requires.

The CPP must begin making plans for that new society in which the new Ghanaian worker shall discover his true potential and his real identity.

Kwame Wiafe

Member - Council of Elders

Convention People’s Party

Tel: 0208199097