Accra, July 22, GNA - The Ghana National Party (GNP), one of the newly registered political parties, on Tuesday called on all political parties contesting the December polls to conduct a violence-free campaign and be ready to accept their fate in the elections.
A statement signed by the party's Deputy General Secretary, Eric Sarpong said GNP would like to advise all political parties contesting the 2008 elections to organise a clean and violence-free campaign, adding, "let the winner emerge fairly and whoever loses must accept defeat peacefully and graciously".
The statement noted that in the aftermath of the recent "controversial" national awards, the country had been left more divided than united, even though the President said the purpose of the awards was to reconcile and unite the country.
"We spent so much money on a National Reconciliation exercise and now these awards but the country is even more divided on political lines than ever," the statement noted. It said the current state of national disunity could affect the way parties conducted their political campaign in the run-up to the December poll, unless parties made conscious efforts to prevent violence. The statement noted that GNP was not opposed to honouring citizens who had performed creditably, but it was against spending as much as US$1.4 million on medallions at a go to decorate a few people, at a time when the greater chunk of the citizens found it difficult to make ends meet.
"GNP does not believe that Ghana has too much money to do everything at the same time, therefore it would have been better to limit the awards to a few deserving people for now instead of the blanket awards," it said.
It noted that at the time when Ghana spent US$1.4 million on awards, the British government presented NACOB with a 15,000 pounds toilet to have a decent way for handling drugs expelled by couriers, saying that it was a shame that the country had to take a gift of something it could have bought easily. The party assured the public that GNP government would ensure more responsible utilization of state funds.
