Minutes to the end of a meeting at which they resolved to refrain from returning to the streets, over two thousand distressed members of the Coalition of Street Traders Association of Ghana who gathered at the Rex cinema hall became divided over the issue of whether to vote for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidate or...
..that of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the upcoming parliamentary by-elections in the Odododiodioo constituency of the Greater Accra region.
The traders had converged on the Rex Cinema hall to discuss ways of halting the activities of some of their members, which had sparked fear of return to the street and pavements in the central business area.
Just as the meeting was about to end, one of the leaders, Desmond Donkor suggested that to win the confidence of government to expedite action on relocation plans, it would be necessary that they voted for the NPP candidate, Asafoatse Kojo Mankatah, as a sign of solidarity to the party. This suggestion obviously did not go down well with some of the traders gathered, since they had their various political parties to support.
They therefore considered the suggestion as an imposition of the NPP candidate on them by their leaders, with some expressing conviction that their leaders had either ?gone to bed' with the ruling government or sold their conscience to satisfy their personal and selfish ambitions. According to them, they were startled by the decision of their leaders since they had all resolved to, as one of them put it, "show the NPP where power lies" in the upcoming by-elections." They claimed that they were fully aware and had also been reliably informed that the authorities had allowed them to sell on the streets and pavements to gain their favour in the up coming elections, after which they would be driven away, hence no sign of police or AMA task force harassing them now.
As it became a boiling issue, since tempers flared up, with some of them making uncomplimentary remarks, a number of the traders decided to leave the premises, saying they would forever remain resolute with their choice of candidate and would not compromise their position. "They think we are fools. After driving us away from the pavement and denying us our daily bread, they want us to vote for them. That would never happen," said one of the aggrieved persons. Meanwhile, some of the traders at the gathering seemed to have resolved to vote otherwise. They expressed the belief that it was the voting for the government was the only way it could attend to them. According to them, at least, an effort was being made by government to relocate them, so they would only use this as a stepping-stone to please government, to make it attend to them.
One of them who gave his name as Amass, had this to say: "I am shocked at the action of my colleagues. Maybe they have forgotten our occupation of the streets and pavement constitutes an illegality. They should bear in mind that we cannot force government to do what is wrong." To him, they must all accept that their activities on the streets and pavement were not right and rather give the NPP candidate the nod to help him champion their cause. Most of the leaders who the paper spoke to, indicated their preparedness to vote for the NPP candidate.
According to them, they had only suggested the NPP candidate and the decision to vote for a particular candidate was always an individual right, so their pointing out a preferred choice should not be misconstrued by any of their members to mean they had been bribed.
