Dan Lartey opposes CPP's call for positive action

The leader of the Greater Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP), Dan Lartey has described a call by a section of the Convention People?s Party (CPP) supporters on their leadership to sack Freddie Blay and Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom from the party as preposterous.

?Politics is about numbers and so how can we sack people from the party when we even need more,? he stated. He said the call which was made by the UK branch of the CPP, was based on conjecture and not facts and was surprising as everyone had the right to express his or her opinions. ?Don?t they have the right to express their opinions?? he asked.

Lartey expressed these sentiments in an interview with The Evening News on a wide range of issues. He stated that both Dr Nduom and Blay were entitled to their opinions and that it was a right nobody could take away from them.

On the recent call by the chairman of the CPP for ?positive action? by Ghanaians, Lartey said it was his own opinion and not necessarily that of the party. ?In any case, I have not seen the CPP organising any demonstration,? he observed.

Mr Lartey, who recently announced the merger of his party with the CPP said he decided to join the CPP because of his desire to abide by the wishes of the masses. He noted that current indications showed that Ghanaians wanted to see ?Nkrumah?s good works continued? and this was what he also wanted.

Pressed to comment on his presidential ambitions within the CPP, Lartey declined to come clean saying that the rank and file would realise who to vote for when the time comes. As to whether he was still prepared to stay within the CPP if he was not voted for at congress, Lartey said the masses were ready to vote for him in any category they chose.

He said he was ready to pull the CPP along with him to victory in the 2004 general elections and would organise from the grassroot level upwards on a massive scale to achieve the desired results. ?At the time of the congress, the leadership would be obvious,? he emphasised.

He stated that he wanted to be in a position where he could be able to influence the rescue of the country from the economic mess created by the NPP and the NDC. Mr Lartey declined to comment further on whether the position of influence was as a president or as a government official.

Commenting on recent reports indicating the opposition of the northern branches against the merger of the GCPP with the CPP, Lartey described the man who wrote the letter as an ?impersonator and imposter.? ?As far as we are concerned, the man who wrote the letter is not a party member,? he stated.

He said there was no chairman for the party in the north and, therefore, the author of that letter could only have been an imposter if he described himself as such. ?He is not a regional chairman and so has no position to express,? he added.