NPP front liner John Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen has charged poling station executives who are selected as delegates for the party's December congress to reject all the pretenders who turned their backs at them when, they went into government but now seek their mandate to be president. Claiming to be the only one of the 18 or so contestants who regularly visits polling station executives whilst the other contestants only visit constituency executives, Alan asked the constituency executives to appreciate where their bread is buttered and show appreciation where it is due. According. to him, by their actions it ought to be clear to them how very little all those who are now claiming affection care about them. He also disputed any suggestions that the party ought to, at this stage in its existence, be guided by the work of who has been the longest serving servant. He said the issue is not about who has suffered most for the NPP but how the party can select a winnable and marketable candidate, because if it failed to select such a person to square it out with the NDC, the NPP was sure to surrender governance to them with dire consequences to the party. He predicted mayhem or all of them, including constituency executives that he said, would not be spared commensurate punishment while the rulers face long prison terms. According to him, if the NDC assumed power in 2009, they will not only imprison those who have run the affairs of the country in the Kufuor administration, but that even polling station executives will have their share of the punishment. Alan cautioned the polling station executives against the sophistry of all those who were using the congress to make overtures at them and asked them to turn their backs at them at congress. Also playing the tribal card, Alan who claimed to be the only Fante among the multitude of contestants by tracing his roots to Elmina, told polling station executives drawn from Cape Coast, Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem, North and South Assin, Mfantsiman West and Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese in the Central region, that being the only Fante it was important for all Fantes to vote for him to make history as the first Fante president. "I am the only Fante in the race so please let me make history for you as the first Fante to be the president but not vice," he pleaded Alan's plea comes less than a fortnight after Vice president Aliu's campaign leader Dr. Amoako Tuffuor dropped a tribal card that is expected to greatly trouble his election bid. Party faithfuls and a cross section of Ghanaians have rejected attempts at the affirmative principles of any triba1 action, describing it as an attempt to entrench divisiveness into the country's body polity. Even as he plays the tribal card within the NPP, the CPP's Kwesi Nduom from Elmina may secure the nod of his party while the NDC has for the past three presidential poll, been led by a Fante. Alan whose visit to the enclave, according to campaign stalwarts, should be his last before the December 22 congress, promised a grand return if the collective efforts of Fantes helped him to the onetouch victory, this time ,in his capacity as president of the Republic of Ghana. Alan identified the provision of jobs and availability of cash for the party's foot soldiers as the one major problem confronting the NPP, because he saw in the foot soldiers and polling station executives, people who are very, very hungry. He asked them not to be enamoured by the big English they present to them poor benighted village folks because the time for big English cannot be when party followers are hungry and desperate. Alan who is credited with visiting all districts and hamlets in the last two or so years, disputed suggestions that the Atta Mills retail campaign strategy that has taken him to homes and markets was not yielding results. He admonished NPP followers to be humble enough to appreciate the strides made by Mills in the past seven years and where possible, copy the strategy he described as the best. "Alan, Cash" Kyeremanteng pledged weekly allowances to polling station executives till 22 December, provide 230 pick-up vehicles for all the districts and 21 thousand bicycles for all polling station chairmen if he emerged congress winner by close of day December 22, 2007. Source: Network Herald