Political brinkmanship a bane for our development - Asante

Accra, Dec. 17, GNA – Mr Kojo Asante, Head of Programmes at the Centre for Democratic Governance, has expressed worry about the high levels “brinkmanship” of elections in Ghana saying it was very dangerous and a bane to national development.

He said brinkmanship was the art or practice of pushing a dangerous situation or confrontation to its limits adding that he favoured the creation of equal opportunity for the citizenry to achieve desired results.

He said this at the weekend during a day’s workshop for youth leaders in tertiary institutions organized by the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) to build their capacity for a peaceful and incident-free 2012 Parliamentary and Presidential elections.

The participants included delegates from Student Representative Councils, Ghana National Union of Students, Community Youth Groups, Religious Youth Groups, Political Party Youth groups, youth networks and Civic Club leaders.

The workshop was organized with the theme: “Promoting Integrity in Ghana’s 2012 Elections: The Role of the Ghanaian Youth.”

Mrs Florence Dennis, Executive Secretary of GACC expressed the hope that the workshop would create the opportunity for the youth to promote integrity in Ghana’s elections and beyond.

“We hope to build their capacity to enable them effectively manage and cope in the event that their political party or interest they represent loses in an election,” she added.

Mrs Dennis observed that most violent activities during and after election campaigns were led by youth leaders who had been influenced either by material gains or politicians stressing that the youth suffered most of the consequences.

She said to reverse the bad trend and to safeguard the youth and the country’s fledgling democracy, it was critical to educate, direct and remind the youth of the valuable and crucial role they played in national development.

Mr Samuel Bosompem, Deputy Director of Public Education at the Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice called on the participants to cultivate a positive National Character and Moral which would prevent them from engaging in activities that could stall the peace process such as collecting money and cheap items for the sake of causing riots at opponent’s political rallies.

Mr Alimou Diallo, Programme Coordinator of the West Africa Network for Peace, encouraged the participants to apply themselves to detecting early warning signals of election violence and conflicts before they became chaotic and too expensive and cumbersome to solve.