There is a famous saying in London that you could be waiting at the bus stop for a bus that takes forever to come, and then suddenly several buses turn up together going in the same direction.
I can readily attest to this phenomenon from personal experience.
In the past week or so, the country has witnessed the political version of what one may call the London Bus Syndrome (LBS).
The Supreme Court’s decisions on political parties’ delegate systems and the powers of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), handed down the same day, the government’s White Paper on constitutional reforms and the Court of Appeal’s acquittal of Madam Sedina Tamakloe have tumbled in quick succession into the public square, barely leaving time and space to pause and catch one’s breath.
Each of these, in its own right, provides enough fodder for a week’s public commentary.
For a weekly columnist, the political LBS presents a goldmine that leaves one spoilt for choice but also presents a dilemma of sorts.
‘Fear delegates no more’
On a personal score, the issue I find most intriguing over the past week is the Supreme Court’s judgement abolishing political parties’ delegates system for choosing presidential and parliamentary candidates ahead of general elections, with a determination that all card-bearing members must be given the right to have a say in the selection of these candidates.
Within the context of concerns for the ugly, blatant and shameless vote-buying that has characterised our delegates system in the past, and which has been almost cynically referred to as ‘cocoa season’ for delegates, this ban clearly is seen in many quarters as relief that is long overdue and which will clean up our monetised political system.
It seems only fair that all card-bearing members of a political party, and not necessarily just a few hand-picked delegates, will decide who represents the party at parliamentary and presidential elections.
The expectation is that this change will put paid to the late Sir John of NPP’s famous quip of ‘fear delegates’. I wonder what he would make of this judgement from that perspective if he were still with us.
Hopefully this new direction will end the spectacle of aggrieved primaries candidates breaking away from their party and running as independent candidates over what they perceive as underhand, shabby treatment by delegates and the party.
I believe this judgement will cure this by enabling all candidates to test their strength with party rank and file.
Executive problem, judicial solution
To the extent that the Supreme Court decision is aimed at improving party internal democratic principles, I have no quarrel with the apex court.
On preventing vote-buying through this expansion, I believe the petitioners sought to use the courts to achieve what the state, through the executive, is empowered to do and which it has woefully failed to do over the years. But does the court decision to dismantle the delegates system altogether solve the problem at hand?
PNDC Law 284 and the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act29) apply to offences committed in public elections (including vote-buying/selling), but these provisions are routinely ignored even in the face of clear evidence.
The law does not expressly cover internal party contests and there have been suggestions for vote-buying/selling in these elections to be criminalised as well, which have so far been ignored by successive governments for reasons not difficult to fathom.
If the express laws on public elections already in place are treated with disdain, what is the point of roping in internal contests under the criminal provisions?
I believe it is primarily despair arising out of this ugly vote-buying and the attendant impotence of the state to crack the whip, rather than some ideal democratic principles per se that drove the petitioners to the apex court.
Expanding cocoa farm
Unfortunately, however, I believe this directive by the Supreme Court will hardly curb vote-buying and vote-selling in our political primaries.
This is because the fundamental ingredients of politicians’ willingness to buy, along with voters’ willingness to sell and compounded by the state’s unwillingness to act, remain firmly in place…
With these three ingredients constituting an unholy trinity, what it means going forward is that candidates will simply try to buy the votes of as many ordinary members as possible.
After all, over the years, the delegates’ system for each of the parties has been expanded progressively and considerably, with the deluded notion that more delegates will make it more difficult for candidates to throw money into the mix.
That has hardly worked. Indeed, in general elections, millions vote, yet vote-buying persists.
Why should internal contests, with a relatively smaller voter base, be any different?
I reckon the decision by the court, well-intentioned though it may be towards cleaning up our politics, simply expands and, in effect, ‘democratises’ vote-buying beyond a few delegates, thereby positioning every eligible party member to harvest his or her own cocoa from the primaries' season.
In other words, the court ruling simply brings more harvesters unto the cocoa farm.
It may sound more equitable in a perverse way but it still leaves the fundamental problem in situ.
Let’s stop pretending
As well-intentioned as it may be, hailing the Supreme Court decision as a step towards curbing vote-buying/selling is misplaced, with the greatest of respect.
Simply changing the arithmetic by jacking up the number of eligible voters does not change the ethics, and we cannot pretend otherwise.
Increasingly, many decent people are being priced out of the market of political office through monetisation, and this could have an adverse effect on the quality of both the executive and the legislative branches of government.
Even more dangerous is the prospect of dirty money from criminals, both local and foreign, funding our elections and thus literally running our democracy from the shadows.
Narcotics and ‘galamsey’ readily come to mind.
Perhaps we could, as a start, take away the President’s power to appoint members of the Electoral Commission, with each party nominating three members to be voted upon by the electorate along the lines of Council of State elections, and with security of tenure.
Perhaps a two-thirds majority approval by Parliament could be thrown into the mix somewhere in the process.
The EC can then be given the teeth to monitor all elections and the campaigns leading to the elections, with the power to sanction candidates over vote-buying, including but not limited to disqualification.
The Supreme Court has, by its decision, deepened party internal democracy, but I am afraid the court is not a short cut to cleansing our politics of the ugly stain of vote-buying and selling.
Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng
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