Two prominent names and faces in the Ghanaian media landscape, Ben Ephson Jnr. and Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, have expressed some happiness at the new found spirit and the seeming re-emergence of a vibrant Convention People’s Party towards Election 2008. They said however, that the CPP risks losing all benefits the new shine may bring it if delegates attending a national conference to select party leaders elect businessman, George Aggudey, as presidential candidate. Voting in the election attended by 2001 delegates closed at about 9am on Monday due to a late start of voting on Sunday. Ben Ephson, pollster and Editor of the Daily Dispatch newspaper and Gabby, Editor- in-Chief of the Statesman newspaper, were speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Monday. According to Gabby, the choice of a candidate was a very crucial issue particularly for the CPP, having performed poorly at previous elections. He explained that a good candidate can bring back life into the party and may even make the party more attractive to others. “It is absolutely important that the CPP chooses a candidate that can give a good signal to Ghanaians generally that the CPP is on the rise. With the PNC we didn’t really get that; that is not to say that Edward Mahama is not a good material, but there is nothing new, there is nothing particularly different in what we’ve seen with the PNC over the period. If the CPP makes the mistake of sticking to business as usual, Aggudey as usual, then I think its attractiveness will remain the same which is under three percent,” said Gabby. Peoples’ National Convention (PNC) General Secretary, Scott Pwamang, had argued that the real issues confronting the Nkrumahist parties, including the CPP and his own PNC, was the lack of focus in building a united front as even at this crucial time, members of the parties are rather pre-occupied with discussions on which party to align with when; be it NDC or NPP, for elections. Mr. Pwamang who said he was encouraged by reports of a peaceful and successful CPP congress from Kumasi, expressed the hope that delegates would elect a good messenger ‘because the CPP tradition has a good message.’ “Somebody who can tell our story and also present the party in a manner that will make the party attractive to Ghanaians, to the youth, make our matters or our principles we talk about relevant to current issues and this is the kind of person that I’m hoping that the delegates will elect so that the person can partner with our own leadership so we can present something very strong for 2008.” For Ben Ephson, the CPP’s very future depends on who they pick as presidential candidate, and “If they pick Aggudey, with due respect to him, they are dead in water, they better forget about 2008.” Asked by show host, Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, how that could be so since the National Democratic Congress has defended a similar stance for Prof Evans Atta mills, explaining that constituency may work positively for him, Ben Ephson said “If you look at the percentage of the core supporters of the CPP who voted for Mr. Aggudey, first and foremost before you can win the elections you need to get the floating voters to vote for you. “If you look at the CPP in 2004, the total number of votes that the CPP parliamentary candidates had was 239,962, only 35.8 percent voted for Mr. Aggudey, which is 86,000. So if the core supporters of CPP, more than 64 percent thought that Mr. Aggudey was not good enough to be voted for, how can they go and tell the floating voters to vote for Mr. Aggudey? So I believe that it’s not with Mr. Aggudey’s person, may be he is a good businessman, but in terms of politics, the core supporters don’t believe in him enough to take the party to the next level.”