Feature Article : "The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of Modernghana.com."

Whatever happens on Sunday 7th December 2008, there is going to be change in Ghana. Whether the change will be real or not will depend on the perceptions of Ghanaians as to where we should be heading as a country and which party can get us there.

Parliamentary elections
Let me start by talking about the Parliamentary elections, the one that I consider to be the most important if we are to continue with a deepening of our multiparty democratic dispensation.

Parliament is expected to be the highest authority in the land in making the laws of the country and with respect to approving budgets that are set by government. In the Parliamentary system in the UK, parliament is not only the highest lawmaking authority but part of parliament acts as the executive. In the US, the House of Representatives and the Senate are required to make law and the executive president has the role of governing the country. In the Ghanaian system we have a hybrid system where members of parliament are allowed to be part of the executive.

The difficulty for us to date is that since 1992, the Presidents party has always had the largest majority in parliament. To a large extent this makes parliament more of a rubber stamping authority than a lawmaking authority and challenges the objectivity and independence of our parliament. Two ways of making parliament more independent and more relevant would be to a) transform parliament into a solely lawmaking authority with no executive responsibility and b) vote tactically so that he who wins the presidency will not have the majority in parliament.

So we need to strengthen parliament by getting parliamentarians who have no wish to govern, but who are more interested in representing the voice of their constituents in making good laws for country and helping to ensure that there is law and order in our country and that there are sufficient institutions including civil society institutions that support this our new found democracy.

My challenge to Ghanaians therefore is to be conscious of who they vote for to represent them in parliament – they must not only vote with their consciences to elect a better balanced parliament that will deliver for the people and provide the scrutiny necessary to curb the excesses of a powerful executive presidency. Sadly during both the Rawlings and Kufour periods parliament has not been able to rise to the challenge and there is a real need to strengthen parliament to make it more representative of the people it represents.

My hope is that at this election parliament is more evenly balanced and the numbers of third party representatives would be higher – my party of choice however should be given an opportunity by the Ghanaian people for the tireless and serious way in which they have worked on this election.

An evenly balanced parliament will represent real change in Ghanaian politics.

Presidential elections
Though there are many candidates in the presidential elections – there are really only three choices that are available to the Ghanaian people.

* A negative passive choice
* A do nothing neutral choice and
* A positive active choice

Passive change – Atta Mills NDC
A passive choice will involve picking some who may not be able to govern the country because he has too many powerful people breathing down his shoulder and watching his every move even to the extent of suggesting what new moves he makes and what he considers to be priority.

It will be a negative choice because the candidate had an opportunity to transform the economy and social fabric but was unable because we are told there were others more powerful who did not listen. This person comes from the same party that introduced as to the heady days of structural adjustment and that eventually in our government going for HIPC. This person was not first choice; others had come before him and though he is very measured and also very nice, he lacks the fire in his belly to make any real change to the country. What has been instructive in this campaign is that he has once again demonstrated that he cannot win an election and in the last minutes of the campaign they have unleashed unto the poor people of Ghana the full power of the founder of their party who has general appeal to the mass of Ghanaians despite founding one of the most elitist parties in the country.

A choice for this candidate will also leave us in the most uncertain of states and may actually push the country to a state of instability as they try to undo all the the present government has initiated to prove that their policies are different. For me it is this fear of vindictiveness of return the country back to the days when power was more important than office that makes me conclude that the country is better off without Atta Mills as head of state. It will signify a return to the past days of all that went wrong with Ghana.

Neutral Change – Nana Akuffo-Addo NPP
The other choice – the neutral choice is for the country to do nothing and return the NPP presidential candidate to power. This will not be change at all because it is unlikely that they will not follow the failed policies of their party that has led to untold suffering in Ghana especially amongst the poor.

Ghanaians need a change from the old ways of cronyism and the exclusion of a large mass of people from contributing and participating in economic and social development in our country. There is no indication that more people will be included; another win will make them even more arrogant and lead them to believe that all the bad things that they are doing are actually welcomed by the electorate. Much in the same way that in 2000 some of us advocated for change from the NDC to the NPP for the sake of testing the democratic maturity in our country, this time round we now think that enough is enough. There has been nothing refreshing in their approach to resolving the real problems of development in our country. We shall get more of the same and I really think that the people of Ghana cannot afford this choice of non-change.

Positive Change - Papa Kwesi Nduom CPP
This leads us to why the only choice is really the choice about active positive change for our country.

We started looking at this election from the point of view of how well a third party would perform. At this time last year there were talks about talks about whether the Nkrumaist parities will all come together to fight this election. That did not happen but there is really only one candidate from the Nkrumaist flock.

I have been pleasantly surprised by what the CPP flag bearer has achieved in this short period of campaigning for the post of the highest office, his sheer hard work has been overwhelming and the revelation of this campaign has shown that he is the only one that has a strategy for the campaign and a strategy for the development of Ghana.

It was clear at the presidential debates that he was the most inventive, innovative and the most pragmatic who has the interest of the country at heart and was prepared to work with everyone to achieve the lofty objectives of transforming Ghana into a high income country.

The issues that he has raised in this campaign have been issues that have resonated with the people of Ghana and have shown an ability to prioritise issues without seeking to make political capital of the fact the he is the most capable of the lot. Continued    Source: Ade Sawyerr

"The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of Modernghana.com." To have your articles publish, please submit them to editor@modernghana.com.

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