When the Kangaroo dances 'adowa'

It s a different thing when the kangaroo dances adowa

I am saddened by the realisation that the chief campaign weapon of the NPP especially in the run-off is to visit the sins of the PNDC on the NDC by painting the party as one which will behave as a military government when elected into power. The NDC is being maliciously discredited with any human rights abuse and untoward event that occurred during the PNDC regime.

The fact that nobody in our society sees it fit to condemn this campaign strategy is the most worrying signal of socio-political hypocrisy I have picked up during the campaign season. If nobody will raise a voice at all, I at least expect the members of the erstwhile National Reconciliation Commission to do so.

What was the use of the NRC if we still indulge ourselves in past atrocities which the commission's work was meant to put behind us? Are we truly a reconciled nation? How can Nana preach leadership for a united Ghana when he allows his people to paint his opponents as barbaric vampires? Where is the unity in this mudslinging? The irony is too striking for some of us to ignore.

If Ghanaians continue to buy into such malicious campaigns, are we saying that until the likes of the CPP rise from the ashes of the 2008 elections possibly after the second coming of Jesus Christ, we should have a one party state in the midst of a multi-party democratic system? A system where one party perpetuates itself in power will create a dictatorship which will eventually breed instability. This is far more dangerous in the long run than the scare being mongered about the NDC.

Where are the issues that should be the subject of this electoral contest? Where are the bread and butter issues? The global financial crisis is going to make next year a difficult one for Ghana. It is not the one who best instills fear in the electorate about his opponents that will necessarily be better placed to deal with the looming challenges. We also have the challenges of a hung parliament to deal with, a situation which requires skills which are different from effective scare-mongering.

The NDC is not the PNDC. The PNDC was the military government that preceded the fourth republic of Ghana. It was led by JJ Rawlings who incidentally happens to be the founder but NOT the leader of the NDC. Professor John Evans Atta Mills, the current leader of the NDC had never been a member nor had he been an operative of the PNDC.

For the records, both the NPP and the NDC superintended over human right abuses that led to the loss of human lives. Under the NDC, the KUMEPREKO shooting incident was the only violation that resulted in the loss of human life. This was no less a violation than the murder of Issa Mobila under the watch of the NPP.

Both parties have had political interests in the respective heinous events that occurred under their regimes so none of them made any serious attempt to bring the perpetrators to book. How do these events make one of the parties a more blood thirsty vampire than the other? I don't even want us to bring the circumstances under which the Yaa Na was murdered and the NPP government's disinterest in punishing the assailants into the debate. Let us be honest for once.

The NPP no doubt has expanded the frontiers of press freedom by repealing the criminal libel law under which Kweku Bako, Haruna Atta and Kwesi Pratt were controversially jailed for libelling Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings. I cannot forget the statement made by Dr. Obed Yao Asamoah, in his capacity as Attorney General in the NDC government, that the criminal libel law would only be repealed over his dead body. The same Dr. Obed Yao Asamoah is the life patron of the Democratic Freedom Party he later formed after breaking away from the NDC. As fate would have it, Dr. Asamoah was true to his own prophecy, politically dead by the time the criminal libel law was repealed. It remains to be seen if his party's support for Nana Addo in the run-off will pave the way for his resurrection or it will embalm him for his final funeral rites.

It is however important to note that it was the NDC government that started the new era of press freedom in Ghana. It was NDC that introduced private radio stations and relinquished the regulation of the media to the National Media Commission as an independent body. Isn't it contradictory for the NPP to acknowledge the role the independent media played in the transparency of the 2000 elections conducted under the watch of the NDC and then turn around to say there was no press freedom then?

People are touting the NPP as if they were the high priests of Ghana's democracy whilst the NDC is a tyrant party. These people have conveniently chosen to forget the significance of NDC's peaceful hand over of power in 2000 after loosing in free and fair elections conducted under their own watch. The NDC, has by this singular act not only played a most defining role in deepening Ghana's democracy, but also contributed significantly to the peace Ghana has so far enjoyed. Can you imagine what would have happened if the Ata Mills led NDC had at the time attempted to hang on to power in 2000 by fair our foul means in line with African political tradition? I challenge anybody to tell me anything that the NPP has done which has positively influenced our democratic development more than the NDC's peaceful hand over in 2000.

Listen to this. In 1995, the NDC government responded to the KUMEPREKO protests against its plans to introduce the Value Added Tax by withdrawing the underlying bill from parliament. This was at a time when the NDC and its allies had all the seats in parliament except the one held by the late Hawa Yakubu. Any party in power with that kind of parliamentary majority could do whatever it liked, but the NDC listened to the voice of the people and withdrew the bill. The value added tax was only re-introduced two years later after the NDC government's economic management team headed by Prof. John Atta Mills had educated Ghanaians well enough to accept its re-introduction. Today, the Value Added Tax forms the backbone of the National Health Insurance Scheme.

On the other hand what do we see under the NPP government? A similar opposition pressure group, the CJA, had over the past years organised numerous demonstrations against the exorbitant tax elements of the NPP government's petroleum pricing policy. The so called doyens of Ghana's democracy adamantly refused to budge until they were forced by the December 7 election results to do so. By this act, the NPP government has shown that it will listen to opposing voices of reason only when it feels threatened.

What I want to put across here is that neither of the parties contesting in the December 28 polls is a saint in much the same way as neither of them is the devil incarnate. The contest should therefore be based on bread and butter issues and how they will be delivered.

I want to see more debate around the quality of the contesting presidential tickets and what they bring to the Ghanaian governance table. This more than scare mongering should be the determining factors.

Source: Mathias Kordzoga