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14.04.2014 Editorial

All Was Well

By Daily Guide
All Was Well
14.04.2014 LISTEN

The New Patriotic Party (NPP), the largest opposition party, yesterday put a closure to their conference; an activity which saw the election of a new batch of leadership.

As a political contest, it was punctuated by a number of verbal exchanges as contestants sought to undo each other much to the discomfort of observers. While that was normal, the unnecessary trading of insults and innuendos featuring in the exchanges was not.

At a point, the party appeared to be nearing the precipice, as members washed their dirty linen, as it were, in the public to the dismay of supporters given the stature of the party, a government-in-waiting. Indeed, that was our worry and that of the rest of Ghanaians seeking to see democracy practised devoid of rancour and bad blood.

We are elated that eventually the climax of the congregation has been surmounted with no broken bones recorded after the shooting into a gathering of party faithful dancing in commemoration of the assemblage of visitors from across the country by some miscreants.

We pray that the law enforcement agents would not rest on their oars until the culprits are apprehended and arraigned before court.

As pointed out earlier, such important dates in the calendar of the country's active political parties should be used to showcase how far we have gone in the democratic journey. This, the NPP, has done in style and manner worthy of emulation by others.

Given the organisation that went into the activity, we can say without any hesitation that democracy has come to stay on our political space.

For those whose efforts went into what turned out to be a successful conference, they deserve the plaudits of all those who cherish a near-perfect democracy in the country.

The trading of vitriolic by contestants, we must state, unexpectedly vanished when party supporters converged on Tamale so profoundly we could bet it was a far cry from what we saw on the political space until a few days ago.

The collaboration between the Electoral Commission (EC) officials, who presided over the elections and the NPP polls' managers, was sterling: it stood apart from the gloomy prediction posted earlier.

Today, the party and indeed the country as a whole have a new set of leaders to carry on the task of building democracy in our part of the world.

The success of democracy would be measured by how well the leadership of the various political parties, including those now taking hold of the NPP, prosecute their programmes and interact with other political groupings.

We pray that the hopes of the delegates who voted for the new set of leaders for the NPP would not be dashed. This way, their confidence in democracy would be enhanced.

 

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