No ideological difference between NDC, NPP — Prof. Agyemang-Duah

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the John Agyekum Kufuor (JAK) Foundation, Professor Baffour Agyemang-Duah, has insisted that there is not much ideological difference between the two leading political parties in the country.

According to him, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) are the same when it comes to governance issues.

At a lecture organised by the Department of Political Science of the University of Ghana in Accra last Wednesday, Prof. Agyemang-Duah said the two parties were the same.

“Don’t mind, when they sit publicly to fight and insult one another. Don’t mind that, the fact is that when you go to the bottom, they all think alike,” he stated.

Citing examples, he said the NDC said they were social democrats but operated more as capitalists, while the NPP, who said they operated a property-owning democracy, moderated their policies with socialist principals and ideas.

The lecture, which was part of the department’s lecture series  was on the theme: “Centre Right Political Ideology: Does it Matter Today, and celebration of the death of Konrad Adenauer.”

The wellbeing of Ghanaians key

Prof. Agyemang-Duah said the two political parties treasured the wellbeing of Ghanaians but sought to achieve it in different ways.

 “They are the same in terms of seeking the wellbeing of the Ghanaian. The rules may differ somewhere but it is not like somewhere in the United States (US) where you see a swing to the left when the Democrats come in and you see a swing to the right when Republicans come in. The NDC was there with John Mahama. What is the most significant change after he left?” he asked.

“The NPP is now talking about Planting for Food and Jobs, that is developing agriculture, operation feed yourself; that is not different from President Mahama’s government also seeking to provide fertilisers to help, except that perhaps the emphasis has shifted. That is why I am arguing that deep down there is not ideological difference between the two political parties,” he added.

Culture’s role

Underscoring the important role culture plays in the Ghanaian political system, Prof. Agyemang-Duah said the country was able to stand against the test of time because the citizenry were united by their culture.

“For Ghana, I think our history and our experiences, our cultural experiences, have not allowed us to even to go that out. I think our traditional social system still prevails to a large extent, and it is influencing our politics.

“People do not understand why in Ghana, even when there is a threat of conflict, somehow it fizzles out; because we seem to have a culture that is always seeking to unify us, so an ideology cannot emerge to tear us apart,” he observed.

A former Speaker of Parliament, Mr Ebenezer Sekyi-Hughes, who was the Chairman of the occasion, however said the NPP was a centre-right political ideology party.

Tribute to Konrad Adenauer

The German Ambassador, Mr Christoph Retzlaff, said Konrad Adenauer needed to be celebrated because of his role towards the development of Germany.

Konrad Adenauer was a German statesman who served as the first post-war Chancellor of Germany (West Germany) from 1949 to 1963.