Small Parties suffer because they lack large ethnic support - Political analyst

Political analyst, Kwesi Amakye Boateng, has positioned that the smaller parties in Ghana always lag behind in the electoral processes of the country because they do not have a large ethnic base.

According to him, support of political parties in Ghana is driven more by ethnic lines than by the issues or the money.

In an interview with Samuel Eshun on the ‘Epa Hoa Daben’ show, he said: “I believe our politics is driven by ethnicity. The smaller parties in Ghana cannot rise to the top because they do not have support from a large ethnic group in Ghana.

Historically, people who follow the NPP started through the ethnic line. Money has nothing to do with this discussion.

If you would observe when we vote, the NDC gets more than 60% of the votes in Volta Region. This is not because the NDC pays any money. It is the same thing with the NPP in the Ashanti region. The Ashanti region has supported that tradition all the time, before independence, through independence to date.

He backed his point with an example of the Convention People’s Party, saying, “I believe that is the reason why CPP cannot rise to the top again. This is simply because it does not have a large ethnic base in Ghana

When it comes to CPP’s representation in parliament, let’s take note of the persons they have had in parliament and see where most of the votes came from -that supports this discussion”, he said.

Although Ghana has a multi-party system, there are two dominant political parties namely, the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party, with extreme difficulty for anyone to achieve electoral success under the banner of any other party.