The founder and leader of the Great Consol­idated Popular Party (GCPP), Mr Dan Lartey has accused the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) of trying to stifle smaller political parties in the country. Mr Lartey, who was speaking to the Daily Graphic in Accra, said the Electoral Commission (EC) seemed to be giving support to the IEA when it recently announced through the media that it might not continue to deal with those small­er parties that although had registered were not performing to the satisfaction of the EC. ''We have all been witnesses to the way the IEA segregated the political parties and spon­sored four political parties with which it signed an MoU...," Mr Lartey said. With documents to support his claim, the leader of the GCPP said the IEA had since 2003 made an efforts to cut the political parties it considered small from receiving financial and other assistance from both within and outside the country to enhance their activities. He explained that when an international non-governmental organisation, the Institute of Multi-party Democracy (IMD) of the Netherlands, approached the IEA in 2003 for names of political parties in Ghana to enable the organisation to assist them financially and technically, the IEA provided the names of only the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the People's National Convention (PNC) and the Convention People's Party (CPP). To buttress his point, Mr Lartey presented a document headed "The Platform Framework Pro­tocol; A Memorandum of Understanding," which was signed on January 14, 2003 between the four political parties, the JEA and the IMD of Nether­lands. The GCPP leader, who is currently on a visit to the United States, said although the IEA was aware that there were other registered political parties in the country, it went ahead to present only those four political parties for them to be given the assistance. He said instead of a1lowing the political parties to decide how to support each other to con­tribute their individual quota to the growth of democracy in the country, the IEA and other organisations were rather finding means to destroy the smaller parties. Mr Lartey said it was important for the institutions with such minds to remember that the smaller political parties played significant roles in the country's democratic dispensation, adding that during general elections, some of them helped in deciding which bigger party won. "It should be noted that during the second round of voting in the 2000 general election, all opposition political parties formed a sort of rain­bow coalition and together won. In the recent elections. the voices of the so-called smaller par­ties with infinitesimal votes were the eventual deciders," he stated. Mr Lartey said it would be better if political parties would themselves be allowed to decide which of them they would want to be excluded from the list of political parties in the country instead of some other institutions finding means to "starve the smaller parties to death". He said trying to use the debate on public funding to stifle some political parties could not be compromised, adding that the state had the responsibility to ensure that every registered political party survived. Mr Lartey, however, added that some political parties were allowing themselves to be coaxed to decide which political parties in the country should be state sponsored "under the-disguised theme of "Enhancing Public Support for Political Parties". He added that if any political party allowed itself to be used against the other, a time would come when no political party could take indepen­dent decisions. "It must be noted that any attempt to cancel, frustrate or threaten any registered political party is inconsistent with the constitution. It can also be said that the present deliberation of the meeting on 'Enhancing Public Support for Political Parties' is inconsistent with the constitution and therefore, cannot hold," he concluded. Source: Daily Graphic