Lessons from NDC parliamentary leadership reshuffle turmoil

Every good politician knows that the greatest human need is the deep-seated desire to feel important. The human desire to feel important within the political space is stronger than the desire for food, clothing and perhaps shelter.

It is clearer that the NDC national leadership did not consider this factor before putting out a letter signed by the General Secretary, Hon. Fiifi Kwetey, addressed to the Speaker of Parliament, seeking to announce a reshuffle in minority leadership.

The 1992 constitution is the fundamental law of the land. It therefore provides in article 55 clause 4 and 5 that every political party must conduct its internal affairs in conformity to democratic principles as enshrined in the constitution.

Nevertheless, neither the NDC Party constitution nor the parliamentary standing orders provide a chronological process to appointing leadership of either minority or majority but practice over the years has been established as primacy.

The side of the divide that still wants to recognize Hon. Haruna Iddrisu as their Minority leader believe that the letter signed by the General Secretary can not be viewed as the opinion of the party because there has not been any discussion either at congress, NEC or FEC forgetting that there is no constitutional clause that requires discussion at congress, NEC or FEC before a General Secretary can put out a statement of this nature. Nevertheless, can a General Secretary, a chairman and perhaps some few unseen forces alone decide who should lead the NDC in parliament without consulting the caucus which has been the established principle.

Naturally, person’s toothache means more to that person than a famine in South Sudan which kills a million people. A boil on one’s neck interests one more than forty earthquakes in his country. The first lesson to note is that always consider others' deep–seated desire to feel important in decision making.

In the absence of democratically agreeable structures to engineer change in leadership, choose the path that you may face the lowest consequences not the shortcut to the results.

In the face of dire domestic debt exchange program, which individual bondholders are at risk of inaccessible funds and may be depending on minority to rise in their defense, the current crack in the minority front could be an advantage to the current government.