2016 polls: We expected to do better – Ivor Greenstreet

The 2016 flag bearer of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, has disclosed the party was expecting to perform better in the 2016 election than it eventually did.

The CPP flag bearer polled 0.24 per cent of total valid votes cast and also lost its sole parliamentary seat in the polls.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Class News’ Kwesi Parker-Wilson, Mr Greenstreet said a post-mortem was underway to determine the steps the party will take to be truly relevant in the political space.

“We all fail sometimes before we succeed, especially in the political domain. Buhari tried a number of times before becoming president, same with Professor Mills and the current president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t perform poorly. We expected to have performed far better even though we performed better than some individuals who have contested before. Those include Dr Edward Mahama… and Jacob Osei Yeboah,” he stated.

“But certainly we were expecting to do much better and we lost our representation in parliament. We were not able to regain seats we have held before, so these failings are going to be part of the components of this report that is being worked on and this time we hope that the reports will not just be lamentations but also offer solutions as to what steps we have to take to be truly relevant in the political space because at the moment, it appears it’s a duopoly. It’s not a multiparty democracy and so how do we become part of that space and truly relevant politically, not just to be heard making minor noises here and there but to actually be properly part of the political process.”

In his view, for the CPP to be relevant, “it may require us to look at the structure, not just our internal issues and problems but the structure of the political space that exists…in terms of all the so-called Nkrumahist parties and why they are not together, what they have to do to be seen to be serious or to be taken seriously”.