Ghana ranks high in freedom of press league — Akufo-Addo
The 2016 flag bearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has said that Ghana ranks high in the freedom of the press league and the NPP can claim it led that fight.
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“When our party came into government in 2001, we quickly repealed the Criminal Libel Law which had inhibited the press for years from doing its work as a public watchdog. My modest self had the honour, as Attorney-General, of piloting the passage of the repeal through our Parliament,” he told a conference of the International Democratic Union (IDU) in Seoul, Korea on Friday.
Speaking on “Strengthening freedom and democracy; meeting new challenges” Nana Akufo-Addo pointed out that the opening of the airwaves to private enterprise in Ghana helped improved governance in general and led to a feeling of inclusiveness among the population.
Nana Akufo-Addo, NPP National Chairman, Mr Paul Afoko and General Secretary, Mr Kwabena Agyei Agyepong, were in Korea to represent the NPP at this year’s IDU Party Leaders Meeting.
The meeting was held in Seoul from November 19 to 21, 2014. The IDU is a conservative international alliance of political parties, headquartered in Oslo, Norway. The IDU is a working association of over 80 conservative, christian democrat and like-minded political parties of the centre and centre right.
It is chaired by John Howard, former Prime Minister of Australia. It provides a forum where political parties, holding similar beliefs, come together and exchange views on matters of policy and organisational interest.
From this, they act cooperatively, establish contacts and present a unified voice towards the promotion of centre-right policies around the globe.
Mass poverty
According to the NPP standard bearer, mass poverty remains the biggest problem that confronts Ghana which poses the most serious challenge to freedom and democracy.
“This is what gives my party the strong desire to work to win power at the next elections in December 2016 to continue the work we did between 2001 and 2008,” he stated.
Nana Akufo Addo said it was the belief of the NPP that the example of Korea, which began life as an independent nation at the same time and in the same shape as Ghana, was one that could be effectively emulated to spearhead the rapid transformation and modernisation of Ghana’s economy and society, and, thereby raise rapidly the living standards of our people.
Korea is one of the great success stories of the modern era, a country which, within a generation, transformed itself from a poor, agrarian economy into a leading industrial power, and the Saenuri Party, has the democratic mandate to manage its affairs.
Lot of work to be done
Learning from the experiences of Korea, Nana Akufo-Addo stated that a lot of work needed to be done to ensure that the operation of the regional and continental organisations — in the case of Africa, such as ECOWAS and the AU — which increasingly dominated many areas of the lives of the people was imbued with the democratic ideals and values “that bound us together in the IDU, so that freedom and democracy could be strengthened to meet the new challenges of our times.”
In the view of Nana Akufo-Addo, it is now generally accepted that “we, who advocated a multi-party system of government, backed by the rule of law and respect for human rights and a market economy, driven by private enterprise, have won the battle of ideas. But the war to build a better world by strengthening freedom and democracy is far from over.”
Free and fair elections
He said that free and fair elections remained the bedrock of a true democracy and the running of credible elections poses a big challenge to many democracies.
He, therefore, stressed that credible elections were critical as they allow the popular will to be accurately reflected, and in turn, reinforce the legitimacy of democratic institutions.
Nana Akufo-Addo stated that new technologies had largely helped to eliminate the age-old problems with fraud in the electoral process in many parts of the world but declared “We still have problems with the credibility of our electoral register and the voting process.”
“My party went to the Supreme Court to contest the results of the 2012 elections and, even though the Court in the end gave a 5-4 split decision against us, there have been a lot of unintended consequences for the country,” he told the gathering and mentioned, “for the first time in our country’s history, judicial proceedings were televised to the public and this has helped to demystify the justice system to the ordinary people, which can only strengthen freedom and democracy.”
The proceedings, he stated, also revealed the imperfections of our electoral system and led even the majority on the Court to call for reform.