CPP gears up for 2016 elections

The Convention People’s Party (CPP) has begun preparations to improve its electoral performance in the upcoming general elections in 2016.

The chairman and leader of the Party on Tuesday, 12th May 2014, inaugurated a Consultative and Coordinating Committee composed of Chairpersons of all constitutional committees of the Party as part of measures towards the achievement of the electoral objectives of the Party.

In an inaugural address to the Committee delivered at the Party headquarters of the Party, the Chairman of the party, Samia Yaba Nkrumah, pointed out to the Committee that the party has formidable challenges because it is the most besieged and embattled Party in the political history of the country.

In her words “Our Party is the most besieged and embattled political party in the political history of our nation. We have suffered two coup d’états of our governments in 1966 and 1981. Our Party was banned in 1968 and dismembered and fragmented in 1992. This attitude towards our Party continues to this hour.”

Her explanations for the bitter experience of the Party in the political history of Ghana were that “They view our great tradition and heritage with animosity because we resist their efforts to impoverish our country. They also despise our self-less and principled commitment to the development of our country.”

According to the chairman of the party, “the rapid industrialisation, strategic investments and progress in continental union under the CPP government of the first republic threatened and undermined the efforts of external financial and commercial interests to dominate and control our resources and markets of the economy of Ghana”.

She added that “they hate our Party because we are opposed to their exploitation of the peasant agricultural economies of a divided Africa. They acted on their intense hatred to collaborate with internal subversionists to plot and execute the overthrow of the CPP government on 24th February 1966”.

On the fragmentation of the party she explained that the Party suffered this fate because “our electoral victory in 1979 was the revelation that no political force could defeat a united Nkrumaist front of the CPP”. This she said was reinforced and under pinned by the fact that “our victory in the political liberation struggle of our country makes us the traditional majority party in our country.”

She asked the members of the party to resist the destabilisation of the Party by her political enemies. She warned against “fifth columnists and agent provocateurs who may infiltrate our Party and attempt to influence us by corrupt means to act against the interest of the Party. We ask all to resist the temptation and dedicate their works to a CPP electoral victory.”

She advised members of the party to “respect and obey the leaders we have freely elected and elders of the Party who laid our political foundations. Our actions at all times should be consistent with the Party constitution and our organisational principle of democratic centralism. We should appreciate the Party disciplinary code of supremacy of the Party and not our persona and egos”.

The Party she said remained “resolute and undaunted” because they believe firmly in the power and capability of the Party to govern the country on the strength of the relevance, appropriateness and efficiency of the development ideology and philosophy of the Party for the prosperity of the nation.

She called on the Committee to work tirelessly and without reservation towards an electoral victory in 2016 saying that “this is the challenge of our times”.

She pointed out that because of the “failure of the inappropriate and ineffective policies of the P/ NDC and NPP governments in the past 32 years, it is time for a change”

“It is time for the rejection of development policy dictates from political, economic, financial and commercial interests that denied us political rights and economic opportunities under colonial rule. We refuse to be the hewers of wood and drawers of water in international economic relations.”

“It is time for our history of slavery and colonialism and responsibility to colonial freedom to drive and inform our economic development policy choices in fulfillment of our mission in history”.

“It is time for the adoption of a development philosophy that is defined and propelled by the development aspirations and objectives of our struggle for political and economic freedom”.

“It is time for the adoption of the Nkrumaist development philosophy that relies on the capability of our people to develop the productive resources of our nation to satisfy our needs and export”.

She noted that “on account of her incomparable and supreme development achievements in the economic development history of our dear country, it is time for the CPP to govern this country to prosperity”