Samia Stops the Progress of CPP as her stalling of elections angers the grassroots.

Sources from within the CPP confirm that Samia Yaba Nkrumah, whose chairmanship of the CPP is set to end in December 2014, has issued a unilateral directive to Regions to halt constituency elections in a desperate attempt to hang onto power for longer.

The CPP constituency and polling stations elections were authorized at CPP's National Executive Council held in Tamale in order to prepare the party to hold elections for National Executives on time for a change. The CPP is always late in organizing itself, a factor that has no doubt contributed immensely to their dwindling electoral performance. The commendable effort by NEC to correct this problem early is now however being laid to waste, apparently because the Samia faction are not confident of getting the positions they need in order to influence the outcome of the ensuing Presidential elections in 2016.

Many Constituency executives of the party in Ashanti,Brong Ahafo,Eastern, Volta Western and the 3 Northern region we spoke to see the move to stop constituency elections as self serving delay tactics. It is an unconscionable action for a party that should be in a hurry to organize itself so as to catch up with the two dominant parties, NDC and NPP.

The rank and file at the grass roots are apparently simply frustrated, angry and fed up that after four years in office, Samia Yaba Nkrumah has failed to deliver on her promise of revitalizing the party which is at low ebb in spite of her media campaign to project her image as a vibrant leader. Also almost everything she has touched has gone from bad worse. A clear example is the proposal of the 5-Point Plan which included “a total restructuring of the party, re-branding of

the party, strengthening party education, renewed activism, internal financial re-organization, Nkrumahist unity, and greater international re-connection' which all have been a total failure showing clearly that she can't anything done right . According to the source, Samia began by provoking a split in the party that created the PPP and thereafter ostracised many well meaning members by her high handedness. This resulted in a great loss of steam for the CPP, a condition that was further exasperated by CPP's poor performance in the 2016 election. She even lost CPP's only seat that she held as Member of Parliament for Jomoro. The post election trauma that followed was also poorly handled and degenerated into a series of accusations and counter accusations between internal political rivals who were bent on scoring points to also shore up their Presidential ambitions for 2016. As a chairman, Samia has not only failed to heal the hurt that members endure at the last elections due to the poor performance which was caused by apathy and betrayal championed by herself but rather deepened factional divisions by virtually throwing her own hat in the ring for the 2016 flag bearer race even before she has concluded her term as chairman.

With the exception of a few lone voices (notably her own three Vice chairmen) the entire party has looked on as she sought to use her influence as chairman to distort the playing field in favour of her Presidential ambition with a 'one woman show'. Her attempt to stall ongoing polling stations and consequently constituency elections has once again brought into view the question of whether it is prudent for a sitting national chairman to see to the election of executives that will be delegates to a congress which she hopes to win as flag bearer?. Many would imagine that the temptations are too great for any sitting chairman in this position and are bound to lead to an uneven playing field for other contestants. The possibility of disputes ending up in court cases are real. Some see this as another potential strategy to hamstring CPP as usual. It is indeed surprising that for someone who is always touting the virtues of transparency and justice, Samia Nkrumah has not seen that the obvious and honourable thing to do is to resign her position if she intends to contest the flag bearer position in 2016. Samia should take a leaf from her predecessor Ladi Nylander, he had the decency and integrity to step aside as chairman in order to contest for his position again as national chairman. The very reason for this action was to prevent a sitting national chairman from interfering with the electoral process in a biased manner in their own favour.

There are indeed interesting days ahead for the CPP as it gears up to resurrect itself as a credible alternative party. Much of whether this resurrection succeeds will depend on whether Ghana's premier socialists can put their ambitions aside in the larger interest of their party at a time when mother Ghana needs them most.