Thursday, July 28, 2011

FOLAN PETITIONS CPP®
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri

FRIENDS OF Ladi Nylander (FOLAN), a youth grouping of the Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP) has taken issue with what it sees as negative campaigning by some executives of the party against the national chairman.
The group registered their displeasure about the situation with a march to the CPP headquarters amidst songs and the hoisting of placards to present a petition advocating a second term for Ladi Nylander.
According to the group, unconstructive campaigning with harsh words targeted at the chairman was disturbing the party’s progress.
“We find it difficult to understand why some party members do not see eye to eye with the chairman looking at the pragmatic steps the chairman is taking to push the party ahead.”
It therefore called on the executives to come together to give their support to the incumbent in order for him “to finish the good things that he has started.”
“The CPP has been changing chairpersons every four years and this is not helping the party at all,” they said.
Giving reasons for the call at a press briefing in Accra, Emmanuel Nii Odoi, CPP 2008 parliamentary candidate for Odododiodo constituency said the party has seen some good innovative initiatives since the tenure of Nylander as chairman.
“These include the introduction of a shadow cabinet, family dialogue and inclusiveness of all persons in the central committee,” he explained.
Nii Odoi stated that people support different candidates for different reasons; however supporting a candidate should be through active campaigning and not destruction of an opponent’s image in order to make one’s candidate popular.
“People with genuine grievances within the party should take advantage and channel their complaints through the appropriate internal mechanisms for amicable resolution and not in the media just to destroy the image of the party.”
Past experiences during internal elections have showed that it becomes difficult for the party to unite afterwards to compete for the national elections, he said.
“We therefore want to ask that the incumbent chairman be allowed to exhibit the experience he has painstakingly acquired over the past few years that he has been chairman,” concluded Nii Odoi.

Caption: Emmanuel Nii Odoi (middle) speaking to the press at the event

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