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08.10.2009 Commentary

Commentary on sustaning and consolidating Ghana's Constitutional Democracy

By GBC NEWS
Commentary on sustaning and consolidating Ghana's Constitutional Democracy
08.10.2009 LISTEN

Ghana's Fourth Republican Constitutional Democracy has stood the test of time and been the toast and envy of even the developed democracies. Since 1992, Ghana has had five successive and uninterrupted Presidential and Parliamentary elections interspersed with local elections such as the Metropolitan, Municipal, District Assembly and Unit Committee elections to strengthen and enrich our political decentralization and participatory democratic governance.

These make Ghana the hub of constitutional democracy in Africa and credit goes to the visionary framers of the 1992 Fourth Republican Constitution of Ghana for their foresight. It is refreshing and re-assuring that only six months into the Presidency of Barrack Obama of the USA, Ghana was his first visit in sub-saharan Africa based on the country's democratic credentials.

One of President Obama's strongest statements in Ghana to the whole of Africa was that Africa must restructure and strengthen her institutions especially the political and governance institutions to make them vibrant and workable.

Though the main players in the country's democracy are the Political Parties, the Media, Civil Society Organisations, and ultimately the citizenry, the key players are however the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary.  These institutions must be strengthened in order to sustain and consolidate our chosen democracy.

Ghana has arguably one of the best electoral institutions in our Electoral Commission. This fact has been acknowledged by the international community through the reports of foreign election monitors and observers as well as local ones.

Our electioneering process is however characterized by intolerance and violence.

The Parliamentary election in particular has been one area which has seen much violence. From the primaries of the various political parties to select Parliamentary candidates to the inter-party parliamentary contests our elections are characterized by acrimonies, conflicts, controversies, intolerance and violence that make winning the contest a make or break affair. Incidents in Bawku between the late Hawa Yakubu and Mahama Ayariga were not palatable.

In the NPP parliamentary primaries last year, there was carnage at Ashanti Bekwai and incidents at Nanton, Gushiegu, Bawku and Akwatia just to mention a few that have become flash points and stained our democracy. It is therefore not surprising that there are sitting MPs who have gone all the five terms in parliament during the Fourth Republican constitutional democracy of Ghana. This amounts to over exploitation of the citizenry.

It is therefore commendable that delegates of the NPP who went to the national congress at the Ghana Trade Fair Centre at La in Accra to approve their amended constitution, for kicking against one of the articles which suggests that the party's parliamentary caucus should approve of a hard working and good performing MPs to be endorsed in the primaries by the electorates, a move which seeks to create monopoly of parliament. For certain people.

A section of the society who are proponents of a strong parliament and favour the present parliamentary system argue that there is the need for experienced legislators in our body politic to consolidate our democracy.

If that is the case, then the argument could equally be made that we need experienced executives and therefore should allow our sitting and ex-presidents who have finished their two terms to contest the presidency for as many terms as they wish and could, since the more one rules the more experience one becomes.

To sustain and consolidate the country's chosen multi-party constitutional democracy therefore the MPs should be given a limited term in office just like the president and the MMDCEs to address and help forestall controversies that characterize parliamentary elections to sanitize our electioneering process and the political landscape.

BY MOHAMMED MANU BUSI, NCCE, KINTAMPO, BA.

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