Should Former Presidents In Ghana Be Party Members?

By: Otchere Darko

I have tried to put myself in the shoes of former President Kufuor and have found his situation extremely worrying. Here is a statesman who is fulfilling his patriotic duty as one of the senior-most Ghanaians who must lead exemplary lives. And there are others within his party who are frustrating him. As a statesman, former President Kufuor has to show that he is above some aspects of partisan politics, and therefore he has to do what is expected of him. Other NPP members are ‘mere’ party faithful s who think and act ordinarily. Such ‘ordinary people’ may be pardoned for thinking that they would be sending ‘false message’ that they are endorsing a “President-elect” in whose favour, they believe, recent presidential elections have been “rigged”. Such thinking is wrong, though, because the 1992 Constitution directly says three things in article 47; namely:

(1) After Presidential elections, it is the EC that declares the results;

(2) After the EC has declared the results of a Presidential elections, any Ghanaian citizen who disagrees with the declared results can petition the Supreme Court within twenty-one days after such declaration;

(3) The Supreme Court must decide any petition lodged with it and the decision of the Supreme Court then overrides anything that has been done by the President prior to the decision.

Where a declared Presidential election results have been challenged in court in accordance with the relevant provisions of article 47 of the Constitution, other things the Constitution has said, though implicitly, are that:

(a) Until the Supreme Court decides otherwise, any Presidential election declaration made by the EC holds and must, therefore, be actionable in accordance with the Constitution.

(b) Until the Supreme Court decides otherwise, the President-elect can, and should be sworn-in in accordance with the Constitution and other laws of the land;

(c) Until the Supreme Court decides otherwise, the President-elect can, and should perform all duties of the President, given to him by the Constitution and other laws of the land.

Given the six itemised facts that have explicitly or inexplicitly been mentioned by the Constitution, why should some NPP members and supporters be angry with former President Kufuor over his decision to attend the inauguration of the President-elect? If the inauguration of President-elect is legitimate, as it is now, then why are some NPP members complaining about the decision of the former President to attend it?

To prevent the sad and unfortunate situation that has developed between former President Kufuor and the NPP from ever happening to him or to any other former Head of State in Ghana, I strongly suggest that the Constitution should be amended, so that as soon as a sitting President completes his two full terms of office [of a total of eight years], he should resign from his party, and prohibited from joining any other political party in the country. Leaving partisan politics will help former Presidents who have fully served their nation at the highest office to stay as true statesmen and fathers of the whole nation. This would seem odd, judging from what happens in places like America, UK and other Western democracies, but Ghana is a different country. It is better for Ghana to do what is good for its country and people, not what others do in their country.

Source: Otchere Darko; (My Political Views {Domestic}).