POLITICS, SHORT-CUT TO FAME?

Saturday February 06, 2010
By Lawrence Markwei

Lawrence Markwei

ONE of the worrying trends manifesting in Ghana politics is the increasing number of people seeking public office not as a means to serve the people, but primarily as a short-cut to fame, influence and wealth.

“As a result, candidates are prepared to spend any amount of money on their election campaigns,” says Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Chairman of the Electoral Commission of Ghana on Thursday when he delivered the 2009 Alumni Lecture at the University of Ghana, Legon organised by the University of Ghana Alumni Association on the topic: “Election and Democracy”.

Dr Afari-Gyan said politicians’ lavish spending on election campaigns exposed their incompetence. “With money, politicians can buy unprincipled election officials to corrupt electoral outcomes or buy the votes of the poor,” he said.

He noted that such politicians often resorted to violence or mischief to achieve their dreams; “because when a politician is using an enormous amount of money for his campaign, any perceived obstacle or threat to his goal will trigger such a behaviour”.

Dr Afari-Gyan said monetisation of elections had also made the politicians corrupt because any money put into the election was seen as an investment which should be recouped when one was eventually in office.

He said the “money for power syndrome” was crippling into Ghanaian politics because the reward thereof far outweighed rewards in other sectors of society, including the private sector which was supposed to be the engine of growth.

“Clearly, we must find ways to stem the corrosive influence of money in our elections if we are to avoid a situation where money bags dominate electoral choice,” he said.

Dr Afari-Gyan also lamented the way political parties were virtually occupying the entire national space.

He said the situation was such that parties controlled even public toilet facilities and other national assets such that if one did not belong to the party in power, one was not supposed to hold a leadership position in such facilities.

Dr Afari-Gyan said the reason why parties were essential to a democracy was that, they were supposed to canvass the people, aggregate their interests and educate them on political matters.

He said when parties exaggerated their importance, it led to undesirable consequences such as a situation where people were identified primarily on the basis of their party affiliation and also induced the notion that government had to solve all problems which then inhibited private initiative.

Dr Afari-Gyan said there was no perfect electoral system adding that a completely flawless election was an ideal.

He said stakeholders in elections such as the Electoral Commission, government, parties and their candidates, the electorate, security personnel, the media, civil society organisations and the judiciary all had a role to play in ensuring free and fair elections.

Dr Afari-Gyan said under that circumstance the Electoral Commission alone couldnot bring about free and fair elections, “because achieving free and fair elections is truly a collective or shared responsibility of all the stakeholders.”

He said failure on the part of any stakeholder to discharge its responsibilities properly polluted the environment and made genuine democratic elections all the more difficult to achieve.

Posted under

Comments