A CPP Demo can be subversive - Blay

Mr. Freddy Blay, the Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP) MP for Ellembelle, has ruled that any attempt by the CPP to demonstrate publicly could be regarded as an attempt to undermine our new cherished democracy.

Mr. Blay, also the First Deputy Speaker of Parliament therefore suggested that the threat by the party to demonstrate against certain policies of government could be very subversive especially when viewed against the background, that the inability to control it could present opportunists the leeway to subvert government.

He conceded that most CPP loyalists identify with some of the concerns raised but added that certain elements had been smuggled into the core issue to “raise unnecessary tension in the party,” naming publisher Kwesi Pratt Jnr and University Don Dr Gamel Nasser. Most important, Mr. Blay pointed out that the communiqu? issued by the party does not reflect the ideas of CPP but those of Dr Abubakar Alhassan the chairman and a few others.

The first Deputy Speaker said the CPP as a political Party should concentrate at the moment on how to build the structures of the party to contest the 2004 elections and not resort to actions that raises the political atmosphere in the country like human rights organisations and gender advocates. In his view such actions only create room for all kinds of characters on the lunatic fringes to misbehave. “Rip Van Wynkles should not make it look as if they want to use the methods of 1949 and so forth for what we need to achieve now.”

In the vein of “you know I hate to…what’s the expression? Blow my own horn,” Mr. Blay dared any CPPist who felt comfortable with the political turbulence to “go contest the party’s primaries and get the opportunity to represent a constituency.” Short of the willingness and readiness of the party to wake up to the exigencies of modern political strategy to win power, the deputy Speaker warned that CPP should be singing the requiem mass while they wait for the last man to leave the party head office to put out the light.

The CPP had stated at its January 10 press conference that, “We will now mobilise ordinary Ghanaians to exercise their constitutional and democratic rights to reject and resist policies that impose unequal hardship on ordinary Ghanaians and protect the privilege of the few.

National Chairman, Dr Al-Hassan, flanked by Executive Members of the party said, “we must agitate, boycott, march, picket and strike to direct government in ways that was in response to our true needs.”

He noted that Dr Nkrumah’s mass mobilisation of ordinary Ghanaians defeated social injustice imposed by colonial authorities, which was a decisive step in the anti colonial struggle.