Promoting inclusive governance: Winner-takes-all system must stop - Experts advocate

A Governance expert, Professor Baffour Agyeman-Duah, and the Member of Parliament for Tamale South, Haruna Iddrisu, have called for a national dialogue to find an antidote to the winner-takes-all system of governance in the country.

The political scientist and governance expert described the winner-takes-all system as "an exclusive system" that leads to tension and divisions.

For Mr Iddrisu, the former Minority Leader, doing away with such a provision would foster a greater sense of patriotism among Ghanaians to support any government that won an election.

While Prof. Agyeman-Duah spoke in an interview with the Daily Graphic, Mr Iddrisu made the point at the stakeholders’ consultations to validate the preliminary report of the Constitutional Review Consultative Committee (CRCC) last Saturday.

Major issue

"The system we have — the winner-takes-all system — is part of the problem that contributes to the heightened tension we experience in every election year. It means if a party goes past the 50 per cent of the votes in an election, it takes over everything. The party in government will then exclude even the party that got 49 per cent,” he said.

“So, I think the winner-takes-all is a major issue, and if we are going to reform our political system, that would be one of the key areas I think we have to look at because the implication of that is certainly putting everybody aside for four years for the winner only to manage everything in the country.

“And the Constitution gives such wide discretionary powers to the executive. Once you win you literally are controlling everything,” Prof. Agyeman-Duah lamented in an interview in Accra.

He emphasised that this system concentrated power, leading to a lack of political participation at the district level.

"Districts are almost excluded from this because at the district level, community level, we don't have political participation where people can elect their own people, where assemblies can plan their own development agenda.

“So when it comes to winner-takes-all, the winning party takes everything, whereas if the system allows for political elections in the districts, at least some districts could fall in the hands of others who, perhaps, may have a vision for developing these districts to create what I will call multiple centres of progress in the country,” he stated.

For his part, Mr Iddrisu said, “The germane to all the tensions and conflicts we are witnessing in the run up to the competitive December 7 elections is because of the winner-takes-all principle.

“Today, the winner-takes-all principle is a major problem in Ghana that only the Constitution can respond to, and which if properly resolved, will keep the unity and cohesion of the country.

“If we are able to deal with such a major problem, it will be the beginning of our political ethos and values as a nation so that Ghana will have a proportional kind of representative government like what pertains in South Africa. It will be based on your strength and the opportunity to cooperate and government will be shared with you,”he stressed.

He was contributing to discussions during the validation of the preliminary report of the CRCC to build consensus and nurture ownership of the constitutional review process.

The event drew representatives from the Office of the Attorney-General, current and retired Justices of the Supreme Court, Ghana  Bar Association, the Judiciary, current and former MPs, ministers of state, members of the diplomatic corps, policy think tanks, traditional leaders, civil society, the clergy as well as private citizens.

The findings of the report will be used as the foundation for a sovereign national conference to solicit the buy-in of Ghanaians for a possible holistic review or isolated amendments of the 1992 Constitution as stakeholders might determine.

It was organised by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, which constituted the review of the report of the 2010 Constitutional Review Commission (CRC), its accompanying White Paper, and consider other provisions that might lend themselves to possible review.

Isolation

He said the constitutional principle of the winner-takes-all had dispirited and isolated a section of Ghanaians, and therefore they did not support a party that they did not share their political beliefs and philosophy.

“Whoever wins power, there are Ghanaian citizens of merit who will never ever get recognised because they did not share the political belief and philosophy of a certain ruling elite of government and that is wrong and must be corrected,” he said.

Powers of President

On the issue of the Constitution granting excess power to the President, Mr Iddrisu said such constitutional empowerment must be watered down.

He, for instance, questioned the basis upon which the President should be appointing the chief executive of a hospital such as the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.

“You even hear the President issuing appointment letter for the head of the  mortuary unit of the hospital. So, we also must water down the powers of the President,” he said.  

Parliament weakest link

Describing Parliament as the weakest link in the country’s governance structure, he argued that if Parliament were to live up to its billing, Ghanaians would not be asking for a constitutional review.

“If the Parliament of Ghana was living up to its trust and core business, there is nothing under this Constitution that Parliament cannot do.

“But we sleep in the name of extensive partnership and we sleep in the name of political sabotage sometimes,” he observed. 

Alternative models

Prof. Agyeman-Duah, who is also a former United Nations Senior Governance Advisor and one-time board member of the Graphic Communications Group Ltd in the early 2000s, suggested alternative models such as South Africa's coalition government.

"Recently, South Africa was forced by the constitution to form a coalition government. So, today, as we speak, the Democratic Alliance of White South African is in government. Everybody - Freedom Party - they are all in government," he said.

He advocated a more formalised, constitutional approach to inclusive governance.

"I would like to see a more formalised way; constitutional way of creating inclusive government. We cannot ensure successful development with a system that creates so much division and extreme partisanship," he added.

Prof. Agyeman-Duah also stressed the importance of decentralisation and citizens' participation.

"We have to grow governance at the local level, in our case at the district level, so that everybody will feel the need to participate. We don't wait for four years before we cast ballots," he explained.