The Organism of Democracy ....

THE ORGANISM OF DEMOCRACY OR THE ATAVISM OF AN AGITATIVE MULTI-PARTY CULTURE - OUR

NATION, OUR CHOICE.

The few

happenings in our country in recent times have laboured my head with

reflections on the distance Ghana has travelled so far along this whole path of

a multi-party democracy, and to confess, I’ve often being caught in a quizzical

wonder of what pleasure it has been or otherwise for a country to have chosen

democracy as the order of our national life. Then a few reminiscing arguments

popped up in my head about how those extremist classmates of mine, back at

school would usually make points in favour of a full or partial autocracy as a panacea

for meaningful development in Africa. I remember a particular lecturer in his

usual democratic-biased self would emphasise that “democracy

in itself is a commodity for development”. Though I never really jumped into the

thrill of the frontline debate, I may never have hidden my affection for

democracy and be that as it may, I think it leaves me with so much pleasure

each time I think about the strides our country has made and its prospects for

sustaining such as a meaningful democratic culture. Need we be reminded of the

days when the turbulence of military “fufu-heads” characterized our politics;

when our institutions were less developed, the rule of law was a façade and

separation of powers was only a concept in our books, the days when governments

ruled by decrees and the civil liberties of people were oppressed with

impunity? Like many more admirers of contemporary Ghanaian democracy, I would

on any day choose our current political dispensation over those times.

Though a few

of the times, I’ve had reasons to doubt if this country would ever work, each

time I’ve had to pour a few thoughts on paper, there is a succinct admission

that “Yes we

may” and more

so it may depend largely on the choices of our nation: The choice to go back to

the misery of our political histories or fully embrace the sophistication that

comes with democracy and the rule of law and even progress further with it. We

may as a country, choose to identify with the things that matter most, we may

choose to talk about them; we may choose to shut up or put up. In the same

vein, we may choose for ourselves the kind of politics we want while measuring

its impact on our total development, the point must not be empasised that political

development is a pre-requisite for total development. In the light of this, it

appears to be a universal conviction that the democracy that we have chosen for

ourselves in itself has its own intrinsic values that reflect our senses as a

nation, so that when we disagree on national issues, we voice out our opinions

using the right channels, so that when we need to organize demonstrations, we

only inform the police, so that we can hold elections every four years and

decide for ourselves the kind of government we want to have and hold them

accountable through our representatives or the media and that even after our

disagreement with the results of elections, we do not translate our disaffection

into bloodshed but we go to

the courts to seek for redress.

It’s worth arguing therefore that it may be for

good reasons that our electoral politics has been put on the spotlight over the

last eight months or so by the rather unprecedented petition filled at the Supreme

Court challenging the validity of the declaration that made John Mahama

President in the 2012 elections. Elections they say “are the instruments of

democracy”.

Analysing the substance or vacuum of the

petition and its implication on the triplet designation of democracy, the rule

of law and due process only brings me memory about the hue and cry of the

threats that the nature of our electoral politics poses to our democracy each

time there is an election, and justifiably so, one can only describe our electoral

politics as

overly agitative, polarized and out of focus with regards to the essence of

governance and politics in the context of a developing country. Till today, we

haven’t found the true reasons

why many of our politicians contest for power merely because they’ve not been

honest enough to our desires as a people, coupled with the de-facto two party

competition

buried with undertones of political ethnicisation. To wits, our politics over

the fourth republic has been about win and take all, divide and rule, win again

and come back. We have entrenched rather erroneously for ourselves a politics

that stinks of bigotry, selfishness, vindictiveness, and a schematic power-play

of survival in which only the strong and loyal members of a political grouping

prosper. Many reasonable Ghanaians shuddered at the sheer rage and tension that

inundated the campaign of the last election as many had doom-spelled that the

electoral tension if not managed could send us into that dreaded abyss, which

has kept has different among many an African country. What more could a nation

had asked for than to set the National Peace Council into full flight to

conscientise our politicians that Ghana wasn’t going to be for them after the

2012 elections. The unfortunate truth was that many accusing eyes were on the

leader of the opposition party probably because of some distasteful remarks

that had come from his quarters of the political divide prior to the election.

The hush has been over; we came out of the 2012 elections hale and hearty as a

country but not without for the first time a resolve by the opposition party to

challenge the results in court. In fact not too many people can deny that this

country was gripped by fear once again by that resolve by Akufo Addo who many

believe was taking his obsession with the rule of law too far and could

sacrifice the country’s marginally endured stability on the altar of his

political libidos. Even for lovers of democracy, it was time to revise the

notes. Sincerely, I had some silent questions myself: Why would a system of

government be that expensive, traumatic, yet in the end so accommodating to

people like Nana Addo? How could the constitution in a growing democracy be

that charitable to “bad losers” when a country must move on

because their people needed development? It was then that I thought that

perhaps democracy was rather too sophisticated and patient for our country.

Today,

your guesses are as good as mine, and whichever way you may want to argue, our

people are a living testimony to the fact that democracy maybe the worse form

of government yet better that the others. True democracy is exactly what we

need to deal with our political excesses as a nation; where men would live

under the rule of law and due process no matter how unpleasant they may be with

the system and in the faith of Abraham Lincoln, “government would be of the

people, for the people and by the people”. Evidently, the organism of democracy

has found a way of insulating us from that state of degeneration where man

would find the pleasure of chopping off the head of another or brutalizing a

group and painting our streets with blood. Isn’t that what we dreaded as a

nation? Today in Ghana, even the youngest chap appreciates the place that our

judiciary has in our democracy, the law is a friendlier concept now, thanks to

the eight months of the court room broadcast that we have enjoyed in our rooms.

Even more importantly, we have been exposed to the modus operandi of the

electoral commission and the loopholes in our electoral system evident by some

admissions made in court by the chair of the E.C or better still the probing

lens of the petition. The parties in the case have done this country a favour by

accepting and respecting the verdict of the Supreme Court however happy or

unhappy they may be. In the words of Akufo Addo, “it’s now time for us to put

the dispute behind us and come together to iron out our differences, ease the

tension amongst us and come together to build our nation” It is refreshing to

think that the country

is moving on steadily to its democratic normalcy without having to sprinkle a

pint of blood.

Isn’t it

such a powerful concept to be Ghanaian? But to what extent can we show this

pride in the full context of our democracy and the rule of law, particularly in

appreciating the nature of our electoral politics. Going forward, how do we

build our institutions to work more resiliently? How do we reconcile the crumbling

factions and the excesses of our multi-party competition? How do we stop

insulting each other every day because of power? How do we put a stop to the

ethnicity in our politics? How do we cease the fire of loose talks by party

General Secretaries and do away with the wanton corruption and impune

kleptocracy that is deeply seated in public office shouldered by executive-legislative

connivance. Would we still put our country in gruesome anaemia because

politicians would fight over power in the next elections, betraying the bread

and butter issues?

Having

exposed our country to the naked pleasure of upholding democracy and its

true-tenets even in the midst of fire and brimstone and surviving as a nation,

shall we embrace even closely this sophisticated organism of democracy to make

meaning to national life and politics or after these long tiring experiences,

we shall go back to the kind of politics that leaves us wondering where we have

set off to and why after literally teaching Malaysia how to plant palm nuts,

they are thriving in the business than we are? Our choices are clear as a

nation.

Chairman

Nii Tettey Ashong

For God

and for country.