A senior lecturer of the University of Ghana Political Science Department, Mr Kwesi Jonah, has urged political parties to come together to fashion a long-term national vision to guide the development of the country.
He said the long-term programme would allow each political party that came to power to have a clear idea of national development aspirations so they could contribute their quota to achieving that goal.
Mr Jonah, who was speaking at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) forum on the theme: “Rebranding politics towards policy and issue-based party politics-- Experiences from Ghana’’ to Malawian, South Sudanese and Ghanaian politicians, said a long-term vision would help governments to stay on course by concentrating on the core issues of development.
Mr Jonah said the first ever long-term vision the country came close to implementing was the seven-year Development Plan of the late President Dr Kwame Nkrumah, which was into the second year of its implementation in 1966, when his government was, unfortunately, overthrown.
He explained that when all political parties agreed on long-term vision, the issues of ethnicity and personality politics would give way to qualitative improvement in contributing to policy formulation and issues-based politics.
Mr Jonah observed, however, that lack of interest on the part of donors for the long-term plans of developing countries could have contributed in preventing politicians from coming together to draw a long-term development programme to guide the development in the country.
Mr Asiedu Nketia, the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), who also contributed to the topic, said the country had chalked up some successes in shifting from personality and ethnicity politics to issues-based politics.
He, however, observed that what was termed corruption by a political party in opposition was exactly what was practised by the same party when it was in power, and described that as stemming from envy that political parties had for each other in the country which ought to stop.
Alhaji Ahmed Ramadan, the National chairman of People’s National Convention (PNC), said Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party’s (CPP), main aim was how best to place food on the table of the ordinary Ghanaians, hence he built a lot of factories to create jobs for the people.
He said because the first President of Ghana was successful in providing those basic needs of the ordinary Ghanaian, it endeared the masses to his party.
Alhaji Ramadan said presently, political parties have learnt to tolerate and accommodate each other which was not the case in the past.
By Abdul Aziz/Daily Graphic/Ghana
