ALL SET FOR CPP CONGRESS

While the Convention People’s Party (CPP) is set for congress to nominate new executive officers to steer affairs of the party for the next four years, its clear mandate would be to do it in a way that will disabuse public minds of the age-long criticism that the CPP is a party of the old guards.

In that regard, party faithful and supporters are praying that two of the candidates vying for the positions of CPP Women Organizer and National Youth Organizer have been identified as the worthy personalities to make the party fulfill the two-pronged drive.

The track records of Mrs. Mary Ankomah Boateng and Murtala Mohammed in CPP activities have been described as master show-pieces that supporters believe with the two at the helm of women and youth activities, the CPP would be well prepared to realize its dream of getting its message across to women and the youth in the drive to the 2012 General Elections.

While Mrs. Ankomah Boateng is vying for the position of Women Organizer, Murtala is going for the position of National Youth Organizer. The tentative date set for the party’s Extra-ordinary Congress is July 24, 2011 in Takoradi, the Western Regional capital.

The party’s executive elections precede CPP presidential elections slated in September this year. Nomination for the party’s executive positions closed last week with a crack team of individuals putting themselves up for various party positions.

With the closing of nominations, all aspirants have intensified their campaign to woo prospective delegates, notwithstanding the fact that regional congresses to elect officers to run affairs of the CPP at the local levels has reached a home stretch.

Despite the obvious shift in attention, the highlight of the Congress would still remain the election of party leader and chairman. Four prominent personalities are vying for the coveted position. Those ready to slug it out per the ballot box are incumbent, Lady Nylander; former chairman, Professor Edmund Delle; Jomoro MP, Samia Yaaba Nkrumah, and; current National Third Vice-Chairman, Araba Bentsi-Enchill.

The position of the CPP General Secretary is being contested by incumbent, Ivor Kobina Greenstreet; a devout CPPist, Ekow Duncan, and, Richard Nii Akomfrah of the UK Ireland branch of the CPP. Other current executives, such as the National Organizer, Evelyn Alabira, and Women’s Organizer, Hajia Hamdatu, are all going for re-election.

In the race for national organizer, however, Evelyn Alabira is being pursued by Abu Forgor, a former parliamentary aspirant for the Damango Constituency in the 2008 legislative elections. Also a known CPP faithful, Appiah Kubi Amankwatia, who contested the national organizer slot during the party’s National Executive Congress in 2008, has again offered himself for consideration.

The Greater Accra Women’s Organizer of the CPP, Aisha Futa, and Mrs. Mary Ankomah-Boateng are hotly pursuing Hajia Hamdatu for the position of Women’s Organizer of the CPP.

Mr. Kosi Dedey, who had on two occasions contested the General Secretary position of the CPP, is now running for the position of Treasurer against Seth Gomnah. The two are vying to succeed the current Treasurer, Mr. Mike Eghan.

The position of Youth Organizer is virtually a straight fight between Murtala Mohammed of the Northern Region, and Opae Tetteh, who contested the same position during the last executive congress. The other contestant is Abdul Rudolph-Kadir.

Although the high point of the CPP congress had previously been focused on the position of party leader/chairman, there is a clear paradigm shift with the CPP now focusing on women and youth mobilization. Members and supporters of the party are therefore said to be very interested in which of the contesting individuals will make it into those two crucial positions.

Research by the paper seem to indicate that Mrs. Ankomah Boateng is the more favoured candidate, the one who the party’s delegates believe has the knack and the wherewithal to help the CPP to realize its goal of winning more women into the fold of the party.

She was the Member of Parliament for Wassa Amenfi Constituency (in the Western Region) on the ticket of the National Convention Party (NCP) during the inception of the 4th Republic, from 1992 to 1996.
In that term, the NCP formed a pact with the NDC to form the first government under the current dispensation, and the NCP leader at the time, Kow Nkensen Arkaah, became the automatic Vice-President of Ghana to Rawlings. The relationship between NCP and NDC became frosty after President Rawlings subjected Vice-President Arkaah to severe beating at a Cabinet meeting on December 28, 1995.

Later in the 1990s, Mary Ankomah, together with other PNC members, such as Prof. Mawuse Dake, Prof. Nii Noi Dowuona, Mr. Felix Amoah, Hon. Alabira, joined forces with other Nkrumaists splinter groups to form the Convention Party (CP).
The CP later metamorphosed into the Convention People’s Party after the restoration of the CPP name by the court in 1998. Aside from the fact that Mrs. Ankomah Boateng managed to win the Wassa Amenfi seat, she had on other occasions managed a respectable and sizeable number of votes the latest being during the 2008 elections.

Her votes in the 2008 elections was only surpassed by that the CPP MP for Jomoro, Samia Nkrumah. The paper’s findings have established that the strong feats chalked by Mrs. Ankomah Boateng in all those elections were made possible by her organizational abilities.

At a time that the CPP leadership failed to inspire confidence and direction, it took the dynamism of Mrs. Ankomah to revive and keep her popularity and that of the CPP, especially amongst women and the youth.

Murtala Mohammed is one of the youngest aspirants in the CPP executive-position race. Although his constituency is in the Northern Region, he has extended his tentacles to the other two Upper Regions, where he has maintained a constant relationship with many youth of the area.

That move by Murtala has enabled the CPP to maintain an appreciable presence in the three regions of the north although the two leading parties had been infiltrating the youth rank with money and other kinds of inducements to ward off the threatening presence of the CPP.

Murtala has himself been a target of poaching tactics of the NDC and the NPP, but he has remained steadfast to the cause of the CPP and has maintained constant touch with the rank and file of the CPP in the north.

He has been a regular panelist on radio programmes in Tamale and its environs on CPP activities and has remained a household name within the CPP.