IEA Debate And Ghana’s Democracy.

From:Emmanuel Agyenfra Boateng.

The long awaited IEA Debate came off successfully after some political parties who were sidelined tried to draw the attention of the organizers to the fact that, they were all presidential candidates but also forgot that the rule was that, only those with representatives in parliament have the chance. After all the ill comments about the IEA,tagging them as politically motivated they were able to forgo all odds and have proved all their critics wrong.

IEA should be commended for making the platform available for all electorates to know who to vote for after the fruitful deliberations.IEA should be given a plus and also kudos to them for hosting a sitting President.

All the candidates who made it to the debate respected the visit and have shown the whole nation they are ready to serve if given the nod at any point in time.

For President Mahama,he nearly pulled out of the race because of the comments made by the NDC propaganda secretary, Richard Quashigah and Asiedu Nketiah, the Gen. Sec of the party.President Mahama made history when he debunked all those comments and went ahead to honour the invitation from the IEA. He is the first ever sitting President to participate in the IEA encounter and the IEA debate.

Nana Akuffo Addo on the other hand, came in as a regular customer to once again show his prowess as this his second time with the IEA. In 2008,he faced then candidate Mills and others.

The Agriculture engineer, Dr. Abu Sakara made his appearance memorable, looking at how he controlled the Queens language.

The professional Accountant and youngest of all the Presidential candidates, Mr.Hassan Ayariga enriched his CV once again by standing on the same platform with experienced politicians and inclusion of the President.

They all made the IEA debate fantastic last night at the Radach Hotel in Tamale and made me proud to be a Ghanaian.

And linking the debate to our democratical growth, Ghana has made a mark in the eyes of the foreign media and our donors.

The debate has enhanced our democracy in such ways:

-ACCOUNTABILITY; To be given the nod, one needs to be exposed to the electorates to know how best the candidates are. Also, the debate opened the eyes of the electorates to know who to vote for. On the side of President John Mahama,it was a chance for him to render accounts to Ghanaians.

It enabled our scope on politics of issues rather than the normal insults and defamatory comments. We are really moving forward and in no time, no one will listen to a politician who tries to insult. Issues are dominating and i believe Ghana was first not any candidate.

Lastly ,we saw various alternatives to solving problems in the country from different minds.

The IEA Debate brought about issue based discussions on all social media platforms ,especially Facebook!. Ghana is really the eye of Africa. LONG LIVE GHANA...LONG LIVE AFRICA!!!