Exiting office with honour

The race was fierce and sometimes bloody as the political parties traversed the length and breadth of the country to seek the mandate of the people to govern.

As has become the norm with electioneering in the Fourth Republic, the race was between the duopoly of Ghana politics, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), with other parties playing very insignificant roles.

A section of our society is not very comfortable with this duopoly, but there is no choice, as the parties that claim allegiance to the Nkrumaist tradition have refused to unite.

Their poor performance in all seven elections since 1992 shows that as long as they remain splintered, Ghanaians are not prepared to entrust them with power. So the contest will continue to be between the NPP and the NDC for years to come.

When the contest began a few months ago, tension was very high, especially between the NDC and the NPP, with their supporters engaged in bloody confrontations and polemics on a number of media platforms.

At a certain stage of the campaigning, Ghanaians felt there was going to be an explosion and the clergy and traditional leaders had to mount pressure on the parties to give peace a chance and avoid the derailment of our democratic process.

Then came voting day on December 7, 2016 and Ghanaians went to the polls with very few disturbances. But the tension and anxiety went up again between the end of the polls and the declaration of the results by the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Mrs Charlotte Osei, on December 9, 2016.

Before then, President Mahama had called the President-elect, Nana Akufo-Addo, to congratulate him. Since then, the President-elect has been gracious in victory, with Mr Mahama accepting defeat in the spirit of sportsmanship.

But for a few unscrupulous party activists who decided to take the law into their own hands, this transition would have gone down as the most peaceful in the Fourth Republic.

Tomorrow, Ghana will make history by inaugurating the fifth President of the current democratic dispensation, touting the country again as the beacon of democracy in Africa.

It is against this background that the Daily Graphic salutes President Mahama for his stewardship as President of the Republic over the past four years.

But we are worried about the nature of our politics, where the ruling party gives all state jobs to its supporters, while those considered not to be part are left to struggle on their own.

Our political dispensation does not give equal opportunities to Ghanaians to contribute their quota to nation building.

That is why the Daily Graphic thinks that after 24 years of democracy, the time has come to take another critical look at the winner-takes-all politics of our time.

Because of this unproductive policy, some Ghanaians sit on the fence and adopt a passive attitude towards national development.

Going forward, we should bond together in order to protect our democratic dispensation.

It is for this reason that we think President Mahama was spot on when he said in his State of the Nation Address yesterday that the political divide was threatening our democracy and indicated that already it had taken a toll on the morale and sense of optimism of the people and given way to cynicism that was as dangerous to the incoming administration as it was to the outgoing government.