Is CPP ready for 2004 Elections?

A GNA News Feature By Boakye-Dankwa Boadi

Accra, Sept. 21, GNA - With the successful election of a Presidential candidate for the Red Rooster Party along with its National Executives as prelude a to the 2004 Elections is there the hope that the cock would crow at dawn and come to roost at sundown?

Or are we going to be treated to the caw of the crow or the croak of the frog from a pool formed in a hollow after the first rainfall that signals the beginning of the rainy season?

Our fourth attempt at institutionalising democratic rule seems to be surfing successfully, but it would need a collective will to buoy it.

The basic ingredient for its buoyancy is not greed and the temptation to cling to power ad-infinitum. The Sages of old have observed that: "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

This means that the ruling party should not be seen to be using subterfuge or artifice to make it impossible for its rivals to come to power. A Kumbah Yala of Guinea Bissau should not be allowed to reincarnate in this part of the universe, even though, there are two villages in the Upper West Region called Yala Number One and Yala Number Two.

Once in power a political party could easily capitalise on human foibles to keep its rivals out by planting moles within the ranks of contending parties to keep their fronts perpetually divided. The Convention People's Party (CPP) appears to be having bouts of delirium. Sometimes it appears it is succeeding in uniting the Nkrumahist front then all of sudden it suffers another bout of hallucinations and delusions. Several attempts at forging a united front have petered out.

In an interview granted the Ghana News Agency at the National Congress of the Party at Legon at the weekend, Professor Atta Payin Hagan, the Immediate-Past Presidential Candidate of the Party, bemoaned the lack of resources to carry out its campaigns.

"Once I was elected, I was virtually left alone to look for resources to carry out the campaign," he said, and explained that that informed his decision not to contest for the slot this time around. He pointed out the danger of allowing an individual to fund a political party, saying it was a recipe for brewing dictators. He, therefore, stressed the need for the party to devise effective means of looking for resources, citing the practice in the United States, where the Republicans and Democrats start their campaigns with fund raising activities.

Mr George Opersika Aggudey is welcomed to the starting line for the 100-metre race. It is the hope that he had surveyed vantage and would be capable of running the race at the meteoric speed of a Ben Johnson, but definitely without the aid of performance enhancing steroids.

He must remember the cardinal principle of the founder of the Party, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah that "Organisation Decides Everything". He should get to the forge to fashion out a lever and find a place to stand that would enable him to lift the World, as Archimedes demanded. The cock must be made to crow at dawn and come to roost at sundown.

The new battle cry of the CPP should be - "To Keep the Nkrumahist Front One; Is A Task That Must Be Done" just like General Yakubu Gowan's slogan during the Nigerian Civil War in the late 1960s -"To Keep Nigeria One Is A Task that Must be Done!"

The Osu Castle is assailable yet; but it portals could only be opened by a united Nkrumahist front and not by splinter groups because the children of Danquah-Busia have barricaded themselves inside and the synergy of their collective efforts could perpetually keep the doors to that Colonialist's edifice closed to others.

Nobody should take the six wins in six outings for granted. The victories chalked at the bye-elections if for nothings at all have boosted the confidence of the New Patriotic Party and that could ginger them up to put in more efforts to keep on winning.