Nkrumah was a communist dictator and Mr. Ashanti too is a communist relic. The Whiteman left us with a parliamentary system in which the prime minister can go on ruling as long as he remains the leader of his party and the pa ... read full comment
Nkrumah was a communist dictator and Mr. Ashanti too is a communist relic. The Whiteman left us with a parliamentary system in which the prime minister can go on ruling as long as he remains the leader of his party and the party also wins power every five years.
When Nkrumah failed to win his parliamentary seat at Bokum Square in Accra, and was no longer eligible to enter parliament let alone become prime minister of the country, he changed the system into a corrupted presidential/parliamentary system in which the checks and balances of both systems were removed, leaving him with absolute powers and later on turned Ghana into a one party state.
If Nkrumah had wanted to rule Ghana throughout his life and had the support of the electorate to renew his mandate every five years credibly, there was no problem because the system allowed it, and we saw how Tony Blaire ruled for more than ten years and finally relinquished power to Gordon Brown in his third five year term. But the system is not as loose as one might think, it has its own checks and balances embedded in it, and we saw what happened to Margaret Thatcher in 1990 when she was forced to resign by her own party because she was becoming too "iron" for them.
Just like Nkrumah, Mr. Ashanti wants us to remain in the presidential system without real separation of powers as found in the Rawlings Green Book Constitution, and without 2-term limit to enable the relics turn our country into another one party state again. Let Mr. Ashanti get it into his head that we can either choose the modest parliamentary system without term limits, or the almighty presidential system with 2-term limits and real separation of powers as practiced in democratic countries.
Mahmoud 8 years ago
Anybody who carefully studied our constitution would realize that it was made to sustain dictatorship, and that's why I call it Rawlings Green Book. From the horse's own month represented by Bagbin, the hands and legs of our ... read full comment
Anybody who carefully studied our constitution would realize that it was made to sustain dictatorship, and that's why I call it Rawlings Green Book. From the horse's own month represented by Bagbin, the hands and legs of our parliament are tied by the constitution to render it ineffective. We can't be proud and say that we have separation of powers in our system because the parliament is deliberately made to be a tool and decoration for the executive.
Our system is neither a parliamentary system nor presidential one because; the former has a prime minister (first among equals) who sits in parliament with his ministers only chosen from it and shares the chamber with the opposition and its leader for face to face deliberation of policies. The parliamentary system has its own checks and balances embedded in it. The presidential system on the other hand, is based on strict separation of powers (Executive, Legislature and Judiciary) to check the executive president with vast powers from abusing those powers, which are not available to the prime minister who governs through the parliament and not outside of it as the executive president does.
In Ghana, we have an executive presidential system without the needed checks and balances to prevent abuse since the parliament is shackled by the constitution to serve as another organ of the executive. I believe it was deliberately done to serve the dictatorial tendencies of Rwalings, and I blame him and his PNDC Cuban-Style Communist Dictatorship for all the shortcomings in our constitution.
The mere fact that members of the Council of State are appointed by the sitting president and leave office when he leaves renders them ineffective, far more ineffective than the parliamentarians.
Nkrumah was a communist dictator and Mr. Ashanti too is a communist relic. The Whiteman left us with a parliamentary system in which the prime minister can go on ruling as long as he remains the leader of his party and the pa ...
read full comment
Anybody who carefully studied our constitution would realize that it was made to sustain dictatorship, and that's why I call it Rawlings Green Book. From the horse's own month represented by Bagbin, the hands and legs of our ...
read full comment