Clowns In Politics

Running a country on behalf of millions of citizens is really a serious business. Unless there is an urgent need for a comical relief occasioned by the heat from the helm, we should not be overplaying the Akua Donkor drama.

The best place for such comics would be on special segments of our television during the weekends and not on the political space. This is a place for serious business about governance: which of the parties has a better programme and should therefore be voted for?

The issue on the national plate should not be about letting loose clowns on the political space but how to address the major economy-killing factors such as mismanagement and corruption. These are the issues, and nothing else.

Indeed, overdoing the Akua Donkor bit would be stretching a comical relief too far and suggesting how much we are ignoring the very serious issues detrimental to our progress.

That brings to the front burners perhaps for the umpteenth time, the application of the electoral laws of the country. Varying this law arbitrarily or relaxing it would keep the door open for all manner of people with unwanted ulterior motives to jump onto the political space and pollute it. What else could aggravate the bad state of politics in the country more than the Akua Donkors or her counterparts with borrowed names from Nigeria?

Last week was particularly nasty: the political terrain had a concentrated dose of the Akua Donkors. We too should not give so much editorial space to a woman who would praise the president for being overly generous to her for insulting his (president's) political opponents as she (Akua Donkor) literally dangles two vehicles and a three-bedroom house gifts from a man she says is better than Paa Kwesi Nduom, only to turn round in another breath and deny the gesture.

She dangled the gifts according to her, to spite Paa Kwesi Nduom with whom she had a row over a vehicle. If an adult female would attribute a lie to herself then she is not fit to seek space on the political terrain, let alone tout herself as a presidential candidate for a non-existent political party.

The agama lizard will find space for itself in the cracks which appear on the wall. The clown is taking undue advantage of the varied electoral laws which make it possible for so-called parties with no fixed addresses, let alone offices across the country, to present themselves as such. With ready freebies waiting for these clowns, if they would vote as parties at IPAC meetings, why won't the ruling party encourage such breaches? What a country!

But for once we ask that the brakes are pulled over the bull…