MMDCEs Should Be Elected--CPP

The Convention Peoples Party (CPP) supports the idea of electing Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) in Ghana.

Professor Edmund Nminyem Delle, CPP National Chairman said the election of MMDCEs would go a long way to promote transparency and accountability at the grassroots level.

He said the idea of making the MMDCEs office electable in Ghana would help stop 'the winner takes all syndrome' in the country.

He said it would also promote the growth of the smaller political parties at the grassroots level, since they (small political parties) were capable of winning some MMDCEs election.

Prof Delle made these remarks in an interview with the Ghana News Agency after the launch of the seventh edition of the Afrobarometer survey report in Accra.

The Afrobarometer team in Ghana, led by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), interviewed 2,400 adult Ghanaians, between September 9-25, 2017, to solicit their views on the election of MMDCEs.

The survey, which was under the auspices of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, revealed that 69 per cent of Ghanaians support the election of MMDCEs.

Prof Delle said there should not be a situation where after a major elections, the winner again appoints their representatives at the lower levels.

The CPP Chairman said, if lesser parties fight hard at the grassroots they could end up winning and having their party representatives elected to the offices of MMDCEs.

'This advocacy would in effect hand lesser parties a crucial role in governance of the country. So I think it is a good idea and am so happy that this report has come up to confirm what the majority of us thought.

'The problem we have as a nation is politicising everything instead of rather focusing on development,' he added.

He said the CPP believes in the welfare of the people and that should extend to the other parties, instead of putting their parties' interest ahead.

'We believe in Ghana first, we believe in the unity of our country and we do not allow tribal elements, regional elements as well as religious divisionism to disrupt the development in nation building,' he said.

GNA
By Iddi Yire/Papa Yaw Danso, GNA