MMDCEs must be elected on party tickets-Think Tanks

The Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG) and the Civic Forum Initiative (CFI) have suggested that Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives be elected on the tickets of Political Parties.

This would ensure that the Chief Executives are the outcome of popular votes and thus be accountable to their constituents.

This was among a number of proposals discussed at a forum organized by the two organizations and partners in Ho towards reforming multi-party governance, amendments to the 1992 constitution, devolution of power and decentralization.

Lead discussants at the discourse were Mr Kwesi Jonah, Senior Research Fellow, IDEG, Major-General Carl Nii Coleman, Chairman CFI and Reverend Dr Fred Degbee former General Secretary, Christian Council of Ghana.

Rather than lead to disharmony between the ruling government and opposition MMDCEs, the discussants explained that this would rather encourage consultation and consensus building, citing a number of examples from Africa such as Uganda and across the World.

They said such positive working relationships would inure to good and accountable governance and competitive performance to the benefit of the people.

Under the 1992 Constitution the President nominates a candidate for the Office of MMDCE who must be endorsed by two-thirds of the Assembly members.

This, IDEG and CFI argue isolates the MMDCEs from the citizenry with no compelling reason to be accountable to them.

They said though the 1992 Constitution provided for non-partisan local government elections and governance the opposite has been the case and it was time to face the fact and make local governance competitive and result oriented.

IDEG and CFI said the country should therefore adopt proportional representation to widen representation on legislative bodies in the country to reflect the diversity of interests.

They argued that apart from Commonwealth countries and the United States, which inherited simple majority representation on legislative bodies from Britain, proportional representation is the preferred and popular system throughout much of the World because it maximizes and enriches representation.