13 Presidential candidates on ballot unnecessary — Prof. Prempeh

The Executive Director of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Prof. Kwesi Prempeh, has chastised the Electoral Commission (EC) for failing to do a diligent and scrupulous work by allowing 13 presidential candidates on the ballot for the December 7 polls knowing very well that some of the parties do not meet the needed requirements.

He wondered why such numbers kept recurring on the ballot each election year when the EC was aware that such parties only acted as proxies for either of the two major political parties — the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP)---for the purpose of influencing decision-making at the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC).

Prof. Prempeh, who is also the Project Director for West Africa Democracy Solidarity Network (WADEMOS), vented his frustration at the first anniversary public lecture in honour of the late Anthony Akoto Ampaw (Sheey Sheey) in Accra yesterday.

Sheey Sheey

Born in 1950, Akoto Ampaw, a lawyer, human rights activist and one of the key actors who fought on different fronts for Ghana's democracy and freedom, died on October 20, 2023.

He was a lead counsel for President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo during the 2020 presidential election petition.

Sheey Sheey, as he was fondly referred to, is remembered for his selfless service to society, Ghana and Africa at large.

Ghana’s democracy

Delivering his lecture on the theme: "The problems of democracy in Ghana's Fourth Republic," Prof. Prempeh centred his presentation on "The crisis of civic citizenship in contemporary Ghanaian democracy: Lessons from the life and times of the late Anthony Akoto Ampaw."

He gave a trajectory of Ghana's path to democracy, identified its diagnosis and prescribed a pathway to making it better.

The law professor said despite the challenges of the country's duopoly of political system and effects of the winner takes all, he said the country had earned some plaudits for the successful handovers from one government to another, stating that: "Ghana indeed stands tall as an oasis of a stable, steady democratic progress since the country returned to democracy in January 1993.

"This progress is made more remarkable against the backdrop of a post-independence national history marked by a successful failed attempt by institutionalising democratic government.

"Each past attempt terminated after only years of coup d'etats, leaving the country with no history of a peaceful change of government through the ballot box before January 2001," he said.

Evolving process

Prof. Prempeh told the gathering, made possible by CDD and Friends of Akoto Ampaw, that over the course of decades and through a succession of regularly scheduled general elections, Ghana's democracy has evolved to become a highly competitive two-party system with NDC and NPP taking turns in government at intervals of eight years.

To him, the beauty of Ghana's democracy was the fact that election disputes had been resolved through constitutionally prescribed processes.

Touching on citizens’ participation in the democratic processs, he reckoned that while voter turnout was about 70 per cent on the average, citizens’ interest in demonstration was just about five per cent, which did not augur well for the country's democracy.

He said such failure of citizens to fully participate in all processes of democracy, especially demonstrations to mount pressure on government to do the right things, as well as the frustrations by the police and a complicit judicial system were some of the setbacks of Ghana's democracy.

Such processes, including active political party participation especially by the youth, have been monetised, making it difficult for the right people to decide on who governs them.

Citing a research conducted some years ago by the CDD and some international organisations, he said a successful presidential campaign was pegged to cost over $100 million for a four-year period, while the parliamentary level has "something close."

Prof. Prempeh, quoting the definition of government by Abraham Lincoln, said, that had changed from “government of the people, by the people, for the people” to "government of the party, for the party and the party."

Sadly, he said it was the reason governments in power feared to tackle the issue of illegal miming (galamsey) as they could lose elections.

Panel discussion

Contributing in a panel discussion, a professor at the Department of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Dzodzi Tsikata, expressed worry at the centralisation of power and a distorted local government system, and a failure to address some of the burning issues that Ghana faced.

She called for a full throttled and robust citizenship in engaging with the people to address the challenges faced by Ghana's democracy.

On the funding of political parties, the professor suggested that if political parties wanted to be funded, they needed "to change the way they bring candidates to light" by allowing all, including the marginalised and the disadvantage people in society, to participate in the process.