The politics of inclusivity
Prior to every election, we pray for peaceful, free and fair elections. Elections are about choices not only for which group wields political power but also it is about making choices for appointments, jobs and allocation of the country’s resources. In Africa and other developing economies, governments tend to be the largest resource owner and employer in the formal sector.
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When a party wins elections and takes over political power, thousands of jobs are given to political party supporters, foot soldiers, praise singers and other key players and stakeholders. The disadvantages are that one political party takes over and the other loses out. In this regard, the country loses the contribution of some talented, experienced and qualified patriots because they are known operatives of opposition political parties and are stigmatised.
Depending on the style of the leader, one ethnic group dominates in respect of percentage of political appointment holders and other ethnic groups may feel excluded and therefore very peeved. For example in Kenya, the late Jomo Kenyatta was President at independence from 1963 -1978, he adopted a policy of matundu ya uhuru (a popular Swahili term which means ‘fruits of independence’) and rewarded the benefits to his ethnic group the Kikuyus.
During his tenure, Kikuyus held top jobs in the new post-colonial civil service and had 28.6 per cent cabinet positions above their population share. With more than 42 ethnic groups in Kenya, this created a lot of tension and animosity.
When Daniel Arap Moi succeeded Kenyatta from 1978 – 2002, he sought to reverse the under-representation of his ethnic group the Kalenjins by increasing their representation in public institutions and cabinet from 11 per cent to 17 per cent, while other ethnic groups remained minimally represented.
President Kibaki also in his first term (2002 -2007) according to some writers, “failed to deliver a new constitution to address land inequality, limit the powers of an imperial presidency, establish security sector reform, address regional and ethnic marginalisation and punish grand corruption that had been perpetuated by close allies from his ethnic Kikuyu group further increasing tensions between Kikuyus and other ethnic groups”.
These tensions escalated in 2007 when Kibaki was declared winner by the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) on December 30, 2007 in a much-disputed election, with an immediate secret swearing in of Kibaki in the night as President. The reprisals that took place took ethnic dimensions and by January 2, 2008, 2,275 people had been killed and over 350,000 people displaced.
It took the joint effort of an AU team led by Ghana’s then President, J. A. Kufuor and former U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan, after more than 40 days of negotiations to resolve the dispute. This resulted in a power sharing agreement known as the National Accord and Reconciliation Act on Feb 29, 2008. Kenya now has a new Constitution which is very politically inclusive of regional, gender and ethnic balance. One of the constitutional review recommendations were that appointments be made by an independent consultative body. The Constitution mandates that there must be at least 30 thresholds for both genders in all elective and appointive bodies. The percentages of historically excluded groups in government and the public services are periodically monitored.
Africa is made up of different ethnic groupings with different languages, customs and traditions. These groupings may be nurtured to show the diversity and the beauty of the country or exploited in a negative manner which may lead to discrimination and exclusion in the country which invariably leads to destabilisation.
President Nkrumah in his speeches on the need for African Unity said: “Tribalism is a happy hunting ground for imperialists and continued neo-colonial exploitation” The problem of corruption and the negative exploitation of tribalism in his opinion needed to be urgently addressed since it placed in danger the future peace of Africa.
Ghana, for example, is basically a cosmopolitan country and the town in the Eastern Region where I hail from like many other towns, villages and hamlets in Ghana, have in addition to the so-called indigenes, and people of various ethnic descents, living side by side and in harmony with one another. There has and continue to be a lot of inter-ethnic marriages and a lot of Ghanaians are of mixed ethnic descent with names which most of the time identifies only part of the persons ethnic ancestry. Most of our former Presidents and Heads of States in Ghana belonged to ethnic groups which were different from that of their spouses. It is usually during obituary notices and funeral announcements that one gets amazed at how much we as Ghanaians are related to each other.
The clan system also shows our common heritage and history. My distant uncle from Apedwa in the Eastern Region always mentions how his family was related to a former IGP from Berekum in the Brong-Ahafo region and a late Governor of the Bank of Ghana from the South Tong District of the Volta Region. They belonged to the same clan and ancestry and could inherit one another.
Most African countries were mandated by their former colonial masters and mistresses at independence to adopt and uphold liberal democratic constitutions which had the dominant feature of elections with the party with most election votes, forming the government and those with less votes forming a so-called western-styled opposition!’
Interestingly, in less than a decade after independence, a number of these African countries had either converted their multi-party constitutions to one-party states or their constitutions had been overthrown by some military-led dissatisfied adventurists, saviours and liberators. Post independent Ghana has had her fair share of all the above experiences. Despite all these experiences, we have as a country since 1992, re-adopted a multi-party constitution which with quite few modifications, is similar to what our colonial masters and mistresses bequeathed us or led us to adopt at independence.
The western world, including Germany, Italy, the Scandinavian countries, in the meanwhile have over the years adopted various electoral reforms and coalition governments made up of various political parties to build consensus on law, policy and development issues to steer their country forward.
During the last elections in France, after the first round, the sitting President, Sarkozy, had only 27 per cent of the votes cast and his close runner-up Hollande had 26 per cent of the votes cast. Naturally, Hollande had to team up with other parties before winning the second round of elections to become the President of France with a government made up of representatives of his coalitions.
Even the United Kingdom, our colonial master, has a government made up of the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party.
We, as a country, need to have at every particular period, irrespective of whichever party is in power, an all-inclusive government not only in words but also in deeds. Persons elected must serve not only in their individual capacity but also as representatives of their political parties.
It is my opinion that DCES and MCEs should be elected with an unlimited term of office which they can occupy based on their performance, popularity and the willingness of the electorate to elect them at a period of every four years. S. 20 (6) of the Local Govt. Act of 1993, Act 462, provides that the term of the DCE shall be for four years and a person shall not hold office as a District Chief Executive for more than two terms of eight years in succession.
Article by Gloria Ofori-Boadu