Parliamentary primaries should be ruled out – Governance expert

A governance expert at the Institute of Local Governance, Mr Fred Oduro has stated that the country should eliminate elections for Members of Parliament every four years, as it does not serve in the best interest of the country.

He made the statement, in agreement with the Majority Leader, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu earlier today, June 20, 2020, in an interview with GhanaWeb.

“We did not have this practice of parliamentary selection. We borrowed this system from elsewhere and if we look at advanced democracy, they have devised systems for selecting their candidates, and it is not every day that they use elections,” he said.

He added that the MPs who have great ideas to contribute to the parliament of Ghana or are resourceful could be kicked-out during primaries, and it will not help the parliamentary institution.

“If you look at the primaries that are being held today, some of the political parties will have very good materials losing the primaries, and it weakens parliament as an institution. But because we have allowed our sense of democracy to tell us democracy is all about election, election, election, we are not getting all the right people to be there,” he lamented.

He also added that aspirants who have money could use it to win seats but not necessarily make any meaningful impact once voted into power.

“We know NPP strongholds, and NDC strongholds, so everybody will tell you that okay, do everything you can if you belong to either of these strong parties to win. All the person has to do is to win the party primaries, once he gets that, you are almost in parliament. People who may not go to parliament to do any serious work, but for one reason or the other, because they have deep pockets, can pay their way through the party primaries system, and they will get elected,” he said.

He concluded that the country should reconsider taking the decision to rule out parliamentary elections in order to retain very good legislators as it is done in some first world countries.

“We need to seriously have a rethink about this whole stale idea of allowing just anybody to come and contest. It doesn’t work like that even in the most advanced democracy. How come we can have somebody be in parliament for 40 years in other jurisdictions, and over here somebody goes for two terms and they say they’ve been here for too long?” he quizzed.