Yes On The Referendum Was Necessary
Assembly Men/Women elections are not partisan by law but we’re all aware of the reality of political parties’ influence.
Beyond the behind the scenes activities of parties financing and featuring their own candidates at the pretense of no involvement, you clearly observe that the posters of these candidates depict their allegiance to NPP with blue colours and to NDC with green (NPP and NDC since they’re the main political parties).
Our failure to shed light on this reality and there by vote YES on the December 17 Referendum is to be deemed a state of obliviousness in the case of people whose actions have called for a withdrawal but I strongly liken that to hypocrisy and nothing less of such description.
But for the poor form of communicating proper information by the President Akufo-Addo led government, Ghanaians would’ve enjoyed a clear means of heightening participatory governance in our societies.
Effective decentralization was going to be broadened and assurance of accountability fairly guaranteed.
Proponents of NO votes expressing fears about the century old issues of materialism being given further boost had the referendum been okayed with YES majority votes became a genuine concern to articulate but the imperative broader picture is missed and such brings no honour to their taunting.
For how long must Presidents appoint Chief Executive Officers for Metropolitan Municipal District Assembly? We’re only perpetrating the agenda of winner takes all by not allowing for the processes of the referendum to continue. Of course political parties were going to be given the legal backing to feature their candidates and that wasn’t going to be bad since it required campaigns and voting but it was going to involve independent candidates an opportunity too.
Beside, members of parliament (MPs) were faced with boredom and indignation at the attitude of MMDCEs whom most are clueless in managing cities hence the continual reliance on the central government for even least things that at proper organisation we should be able to fix in our communities.
To me, the simplest thing to have considered in the referendum was the opportunity for everyone to contest for the elections based on your ability to discover resources to address necessities of the people.
We could organize as community people and present our candidate who was going to be independent of the political parties like NPP and the NDC.
Then we would have ditched the status quo of Presidents (i. e born by political parties as no independent candidate stand a chance of winning such election in Ghana) appointing MMDCEs.
Most of these MMDCEs have upheld their allegiance to their political parties and political godfathers at the expense of the people. As such allegiance grows and power is drawn too, the neglect of the people and all that matter to life is lessened and this is the bane of developments. The MMDCEs find such allegiance a guarantee of their jobs and therefore answerable to the appointing authorities.
At least President Akufo-Addo was going to have a legacy in his first term of 4 years of governance if the 1992 Constitution Article 243 (1) and 55 (3) amendments processes have been successful and a fulfillment of the NPP 2016 manifesto promise to give way for the election of MMDCEs and Unit Committee members but the honour was going to be for us all and not one that an individual or an institution was going to be right to claim credit for.
But the question however too is if forming consensus in the electorate Ghanaians is prerequisite to same Ghanaians voting in a referendum by the majority vote of YES and minority of NO how could the essence of such consensus to be measured as the verdict of the people?
I totally disagree with President Akufo-Addo for halting the December 17 Referendum because there’s no ‘consensus’. This withdrawal narrows who this President is known for and certainly the fear of majority NO votes couldn’t be his motivation since that is true defeat.
Source: Richard K. B. Eyiah
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