Partisanship at assembly elections will bring ‘Boko Haram’ to Ghana – Former NALAG President

Openly making elections of Assembly members partisanship is a recipe of disaster, according to a former president of National Association of Local Authorities of Ghana (NALAG), Mr Ebenezer Akuoku-Frimpong.

“It will bring violence, confusion and chaos as being done by Boko Haram in Nigeria”, he observed when spoke on Kumasi FM’s morning show hosted by Nana Yaw Mensah Joel and monitored by MyNewsGh.com.

According to the former District Chief Executive (DCE) for Sekyere Central in the Ashanti Region, making local; Assembly elections partisanship will stall development in the communities contrary to the view held by others.

“I have been a DCE for thirteen years and where there is politics, there is no development so I don’t know what people are looking for”, Mr. Emmanuel Akuako-Frimpong stated urging Ghanaians to vote ‘NO’ in the December 17 referendum which sought to make elections of Metropolitan, Municipal District, and well as Assembly members and Unit Committee elections partisan.

The election of MMDCEs

Parliament is currently in the process of amending Article 243/1 of the Constitution to make the position of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) elected, taking away the appointing power of the President.

The government is fiercely campaigning for Article 55/3 of the Constitution to be amended to allow political parties to participate in local assembly elections.

When that happens, political parties can field candidates for the MMDCE elections, a system the ‘YES’ campaigners say would give the smaller parties — who are almost extinct at the national level — some control.