Article 53 Section 3 Is to Blame for Local Elections Drawback

A lot of prominent social scientists and studious observers of the Ghanaian political scene have underscored the fact that the bane of the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is poor communication skills, and so I shall not spend much time belaboring the point, all to no avail, except, of course the aggravated frustration of those of us who want to see the President succeed in moving the country up the ladder of rapid industrial, socioeconomic and political development.

In the main, I would like to congratulate Prof. Ransford Gyampo, Director of the Center for European Studies at the University of Ghana, for emphasizing the imperative need for Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, Nana Akufo-Addo’s Communication Minister, to be “out there” explaining to the general public the institutional and constitutional problems that have bedeviled the President’s electioneering campaign promise to have Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives directly elected by the people within 24 months of his assumption of the democratic reins of governance (See “Prof. Gyampo Slams Government Communicators for Failing Akufo-Addo” Ghanaweb.com 5/9/18).

Article 53 Section 3 clearly appears to have been inserted into Ghana’s 1992 Constitution to ensure that any winning political party in a general election retained absolute control over local governance. The rather mischievous idea here is that the democratization of local politics, by allowing for multiparty electoral contestation, would detract from the absolute power of the ruling party to control local political culture. It is to ensure what the globally renowned former United Nations’ Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, once described as the “winner-takes-all” politics. It prevents a healthy decentralization of Ghanaian politics and thus unwisely prevents an all-inclusive and capacity-expanding democratic political culture.

Consequently, partisan electioneering campaigning was prohibited at the level of the election of Members of District Assemblies, with the result that the winning political party or the ruling government literally handpicked a remarkable percentage of the membership of the District Assemblies. This unhealthy and democratically regressive political process has been entrenched into the Constitution since its promulgation in 1992. What this means is that any attempt to progressively and healthily democratize the conduct of local elections would have to be first put to a referendum for all eligible Ghanaian voters to decide on whether to either preserve the system as it currently prevails or make it democratically and politically and ideologically diverse and all-inclusive, as promised by then-Candidate Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in the leadup to the 2016 presidential election.

After the intended referendum, Parliament will then be authorized to amend Article 55 Section 3 of the Constitution which, under the tenure of the late President John Evans Atta-Mills, had been fiercely defended by the mischievously authoritarian Ahwoi Brothers, in particular Mr. Ato Ahwoi and Prof. Kwamena Ahwoi, the former of whom I understand had even authored a book-length study on local government staunchly defending the politically benighted status quo. Or, perhaps it was both of these brothers who coauthored the study validating the current patently undemocratic culture of the District Assemblies? It is rather ironic that with both a Communications Minister and an Information Minister, the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party government appears to be achieving far less on civic education, in particular voter-education, than the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress had done in the wake of the practically savvy scrapping of the Information Ministry.

I have said this before, that he may be admirably urbane and diplomatic and all; but as a substantive Information Minister, Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid has yet to perform up-to-par, as it were. Indeed, the entire NPP communications apparatus, both at Jubilee House and the party’s Kokomlemle headquarters, may promptly and thoroughly need to be reconfigured. Dr. Abdul-Hamid may be a more perfect fit for the Ministry of Culture and Chieftaincy Affairs, or whatever the latter ministerial portfolio is called these days. He appears to be too set in his ways, the old sluggish and reactive way of opposition politics, to be as effective as he needs to be. I clearly see Mr. Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, the current Deputy Information Minister, stepping in a doing a much better job as the substantive Information Minister. Too bad former President John Agyekum-Kufuor never thought of democratizing local government during his 8 years in office. The rampant politics patronage in the country owes much to the primitive entrenchment of Article 55 Section 3 into the Constitution.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
May 19, 2018
E-mail: [email protected]