Senior Citizens’ Forum attacks politics of exclusion
It is refreshing to have the winner-takes-all politics debate restarted.The April 29, 2014, Daily Graphic front page reported ‘Politics of exclusion under attack for dividing our country – senior citizens’.
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Also, it is great to have targeted the upper members of society with the issue for their take on it. This long overdue opportunity was as a result of a collaboration between the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) and others, including the Daily Graphic. Among the newspapers, Graphic gave the most prominent report.
The next day, April 30, Graphic editorially repeated its stand on the need for the winner-takes-all policy to be reviewed. I have followed and read all Graphic back numbers [11 articles] on this subject published in 2013. In my contribution, I have called for such a well-focused debate on the subject, having explained its USA source, practices and impacts (See Daily Graphic September 14, 2013, page 19).
It is, therefore, inspiring to have this debate re-opened to seek Ghana’s political and democratic future. In this solution search, however, there is the need to tackle all related relevant fields while staying focused, unlike in the past debate.
The Senior Citizens Forum
The forum marks the inauguration of a nationwide conversation and campaign on multi-party governance reforms in Ghana, while targeting the 2016 elections, according to Dr Akwetey of IDEG. So far, he continued, IDEG and its partners had been gathering broad-based views for multi-party reforms, of which one was that the New Patroitic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC) leadership had shown willingness to discuss such reform proposals, and the reform had been necessitated by the inability of the Constitutional Review Commission to provide that very need.
The findings reported from the forum of the senior citizens and other stakeholders appear to be not different from what have been raised earlier in Graphic and the debate by other publications. Basically, the increasing inequality in society, tension, sycophancy, politics of patronage and wealth grabbing by winning party, corruption galore and illegitimately removing and placing public bureaucrats as governments change were among the issues cited. Similarly, the
counter-solutions included such areas as discouraging the use of abusive and inflammatory language; redirecting politics to issues, not personalities; building cohesive society, peace and stability; promoting inclusion and permitting meritocracy to prevail. Once again, these are all well-known already. The repetition, nevertheless, could be treated as testimonies of confirmation of the problems and nothing done with the solutions.
Following the forum during newspaper reviews on TV two suggestions were made; that we adopt the US midterm elections and the typically Nordic representative or coalition government system. In both cases, no advantages and disadvantages were given.
To demonstrate the beauty of democracy, the editorial position of Graphic had been discounted by its senior member, Yaw Boadu Ayeboafoh’s thinking aloud on ‘Politics of exclusion’ the third day. Also, on the fourth day, in the same Graphic, Columnist Collin Essamuah’s Abura Epistle’s ‘Winner-takes-all not inimical to national unity’ disagreed with the paper’s policy review position and rejected the forum findings, while describing it subversive.
Expectations from forum
In my opinion, the forum’s outcome did not progress the debate from where it was left off the last time, as it brought up issues already known. This means that in their time, while some of the participants were direct role players in diverse ways, others had good knowledge and indirect roles in the nation-building process.
Eminent people have spoken with relevant knowledge, skills and experiences at the forum; an opportunity to share candidly. It is thinkable to have heard from them recounts of the past, as they have lived, played and observed it all, linked to today’s events to produce unprecedented results. It was pointed out in my last article that we cannot live the future without the past but that appears to be what we are doing.
A few steps back, for example, the said NPP and NDC duopoly had emerged after seven years of former President Acheampong’s principles of “One nation, one people, one destiny”and “total manpower development and deployment” advocacy used in building Ghana.
I believe that we can further discuss and find useful principles and moral lessons from the abandoned Ghana’s union government concept and our governmental history from both the living and documents. Beyond our shores is the Ugandan no party democracy that is performance-based and meant for analysis and choosing what works for our democracy.
Being in agreement with Ayeboafoh and Essamuah, the issue is far from a mere review of the policy or law. While the former thinks it is about “our lack of understanding of party politics,” the latter understands that it is ‘the direct interference of our refusal to allow an elected government to work’ effectively since 1992.
For example, it is common knowledge that politicking is an everyday affair overshadowing and hampering the governance processes. Besides those two, it’s certainly about the interpretation and practices of the policy by governments, weak public administration and the public’s poor attitude to governments and officials!
The general public’s poor attitude comes from frustrations experienced at the hands of officialdom when handling illegitimacy and immorality complaints??.
Rather than that, if Ghana should speak, who is NPP or NDC? We need to act as Ghanaians working to build Ghana based on established values (for example: rationality, nationalism, patriotism, accountability) and principles (for example; meritocracy, maturity, democracy, development). The matter, therefore, is of threefold 1) re-engineering the managerial leadership mindset towards Ghana’s unity and developmental purpose; and, supported by 2) institutional as it was once reported by a senior government official that there were over 50 institutions under the presidency [running parallel to and undermining the already existing ministries, departments and agencies. 3) Public attitude.
The contentious Article 195 of the 1992 Constitution that mandates the democratically elected President of the Republic to appoint and form a capable leadership for administering Ghana has an inbuilt question that has so far been avoided in the debate.
Thus, besides the winner, who should appoint [to make the decisions for the winner]? Presumably, finding the straightforward answer implies that the call for policy review is imminent. Other than that the focus falls on the managerial re-engineering and institutional building to take charge of correcting the systems and processes.
Conclusion
Just as it is important to have the views of the senior citizens on the subject, so it is to the re-opened national conversation process. Significantly, it confirms some of the already known issues.
However, in advancing such rare dialogue, there is the need to tap from the participants’ lived knowledge and experiences, alongside national history of governments and public administration from a democratic governance perspective.
As the conversational agenda progresses, the organisers are encouraged to ask the critical questions for equally critical and pertinent responses. Combing thoroughly around within ourselves and our continent, particularly from the senior citizens, could yield great and unprecedented results for building our nation, Ghana. Hopefully, the issues raised here could be considered to enrich and progress the debate.
The writer is a Consultant and former lecturer in Public Management, University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA)
Emal: [email protected]