Small parties are disservice to people — Major Osahene Boakye Djan
A member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Major Osahene Boakye Djan (retd), has said the lack of a party that meets the needs of people who are not fulfilled by the ideologies of the two main parties is the greatest pitfall of the country’s multiparty democratic practice.
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He added that the inability of any of the small political parties to identify that gap and fill it was a great disservice to the electorate.
PPP fits bill
He stated, however, that Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom and his party, the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), best fit the bill of providing a liberal alternative to the NDC’s social democratic ideology or the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP’s) conservative ideology.
Maj. Boakye Djan was speaking in an interview with the Daily Graphic on whether small political parties had any relevance within the dominance of the two main parties, which are the NDC and the NPP.
Political space
Maj. Boakye Djan (retd) said in most refined political jurisdictions, political space had three divisions, termed the left, right and centre, as was the case in the United Kingdom (UK), where the Conservatives represented the elite, the Liberals represented the middle class and Labour represented workers.
However, in Ghana, we have the Conservatives as the NPP to the right, the Social Democrats as the NDC to the left of political ideology and no party fitting in as an alternative to both.
He said usually, the party to the right or conservatives had ideologies appealing to the upper few, while those on the left had ideologies fitting the lower middle income group.
In the UK, the Labour party had ideologies appealing to workers and balancing out on ideologies offered by the right and left.
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Three parties
In Ghana, while the NPP represented the upper class and the NDC represented the workers, there was no political party with the ideology to fit into the aspirations of the middle class.
Maj. Boakye Djan said small political parties had to, therefore, identify that gap and recreate themselves to fit and provide an alternative to the dominant parties.
He said of all the political parties, Dr Nduom’s PPP was the best to fit into the niche left unfilled by the dominance of the NDC and the NPP and urged the leader to recreate himself for that role.
He was of the view that all other parties might fall within any of the three dominant parties if that was the norm in the country.