Democracy has failed to meet aspirations of many Ghanaians — Speaker

The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has decried the state of the country’s democracy for failing to meet the aspirations of many Ghanaians.

Delivering the 2024 University of Ghana (UG) Alumni Lecture, last Thursday evening, Mr Bagbin said even though the country had enjoyed more than 30 years of political stability, democracy had not delivered the necessary dividends to drastically improve the lives of people.

“The question on many of our citizens’ minds is ‘has democracy really delivered’?  That is a very legitimate question,” he said.

The Speaker partly attributed the problem to the 1992 Constitution, the basis of the country’s democracy, which, he said, was mainly enacted to achieve political stability.

“I venture to submit that the focus of the final brains behind the Constitution was to achieve political stability. If my guess is right, I must admit we have succeeded in doing just that at the expense of development. We now have to move on to focus on development,” he added. 

No faith 

Mr Bagbin stressed that most Africans, including Ghanaians, had lost faith in democracy, with many people seeing it as a sham that served the needs of a few, leaving others to fend for themselves.

Quoting the October 2023 edition of the Economist magazine, he said: “Africans are frustrated about the sham that passes for ‘democracy’ in most countries.  They are also fed up with the flimsy states that provide neither security nor prosperity.”

Further, relying on the Afrobarometer report, he said such sentiments had led to lack of confidence in democracy, with an “increasing attraction to military rule and intervention”.

He warned that the country ought to take remedial steps to transform its democracy in order to counter such sentiments.

“While our country remains an island in a turbulent region, it is not immune to the conditions that have given rise to the growing declining faith in democracy among our people,” Mr Bagbin pointed out.

Alumni lecture 

The 2024 UG Alumni Lecture, organised by the UG Alumni Association in collaboration with the university is the 36th edition.

It offers a platform for alumni of the UG who have excelled in their fields to share their thoughts and give insightful perspectives on issues of national importance.

This year’s lecture was on the topic: “30 Years of Parliamentary Democracy: The journey so far”.

The event attracted notable personalities, including two former Vice-Chancellors of the university, Emeritus Professors Ivan Addae-Mensah and Clifford Nii Boi Tagoe, international diplomat, Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, a former Chairman of the UG Governing Council, Tony Oteng-Gyasi, and the Managing Director of GCB, Kofi Adomakoh.

In his detailed and thought-provoking lecture, the Speaker of Parliament touched on the evolution of Parliament, highlighting the various compositions and dynamics of the first to the current Eighth Parliament, the challenges of Parliament as well as its achievements.

He later delved into the challenges of democracy in the country and on the continent at large, and how best to resolve them.

Challenges 

Mr Bagbin mentioned some of the challenges affecting the country’s democracy as the excessive power of the executive and the winner-takes all syndrome.

According to him, although the 1992 Constitution had clearly advanced separation of powers, with the three arms of government serving as a check on one another, the executive had been vested with so much power that it had made it practically impossible to check it.

He gave an example of the recent incident of the anti-gay bill passed by Parliament which the President did not only refuse to assent it, but even refused to accept it. 

“Our democracy is supposed to stand on three legs – the executive, the legislature and the judiciary – with equal powers.  Yet, the framers of the Constitution created a powerful executive, to the detriment of the two other branches of government. We thus run a system that “stands on one strong, and two weak legs”.

With regard to the winner-takes-all syndrome, the Speaker said the Constitution had made it impossible for any form of power-sharing, making a ruling party enjoy all the goodies which came with winning elections and alienating others.

Such a situation, Mr Bagbin explained, accounted for the acrimonious nature of the country’s politics, with the ruling party doing everything to retain power, and the opposition party going all out to wrest power.

“Our Constitution has no room for power sharing. This has led to what many describe as the ‘syndrome of winner takes all’.  Once a party wins power, all other parties are practically excluded from participating in the governance of the country,” he added.

Milestone 

The Vice-Chancellor of UG, Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, who chaired the event, said the country had gone through significant milestones since independence, with many challenges, including military takeovers.

She, therefore, stressed the need for the country to continue to have discussions to improve its democracy for the betterment of all.
Writer’s email: emma.hawkson@graphic.com.gh