Rawlings, Kufuor and Mahama shouldn’t have been left unopposed - Moshake

Mr Stephen Ashitey Adjei An executive member of the Tema East Constituency wing of the National Democratic Congress has stated that the precedent set during the reigns of former Presidents Rawlings, Kufuor and Mahama had made them sacred cows.

This, he said had no place in democracy and has therefore made contesting sitting Presidents a taboo.

“This norm of shielding sitting Presidents from being contested in presidential primaries, I don’t know where it is coming from, but for me, it is a total slap in the face of our democracy. It just tells you that our democracy has not really evolved from the primitive stage.”

Mr Adjei, who is popularly known as Moshake said this in a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Tuesday.

He added, “the system virtually makes every sitting President a sacred cow, untouchable within his own party. Even if there are members of the party who wish to contest sitting Presidents as a democratic exercise, the sacred cow mentality that prevails in these parties disallow that.”

Former presidents Rawlings, Kufuor and Mahama went unopposed because they were sitting presidents and it is also likely President Akufo-Addo will go unopposed.

The NPP has not officially announced that contesting against the President is off-limits, but according to Moshake, the body language of the party is a complete dissuasion.

“Elsewhere, even in situations, where people are not really interested in contesting a sitting President from a given party, the party encourages people and softens the grounds for people to step up and contest the sitting President. It is a shame that we have this situation in Ghana,” Moshake said.

Tracing precedents, he pointed out that the practice started from the very beginning of the Fourth Republic. “It started with former President Rawlings; nobody dared to contest him when he was going for the second term in 1996.

“It was the same scenario in the case of former President Kufuor in 2003,” Moshake noted.

He pointed out that it was only in the case of former President Atta Mills that he was contested in 2011 by former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings. “But even that one, we all know that the whole party-branded Nana Konadu as a trouble maker and left her to struggle on her own,” Moshake said.

He said the practice was poison to Ghana’s democracy and needed to be changed.

“All parties should encourage members to contest sitting Presidents who wish to contest for re-election, even if it is more just democratic experimentation or academic exercise. In doing this, I believe the best to start is cutting down the hefty filing fees that discourage people from stepping forward,” Moshake said.