Breaking Away From The Spirit Of Political Duopoly: A Case For A Government Of National Unity (PART 1) - E. G. Buckman Writes

Fellow Concerned Citizen,

Our beloved country, Ghana, is at a crossroads. We have a major decision to make come December 2024. We would either have to continue to embrace the 32 years duopolistic winner-takes-all status quo or we would have to open a new chapter of all-inclusive political model that would accentuate and practicalize the true meaning of Abraham Lincoln’s famous definition of democracy as “the government of the people, by the people, for the people” in our governance architecture..

For how long must we, as a nation, continue to embrace a political system that has disadvantaged the majority of our people, albeit it is supposed to be a system of majority rule.

A political system that promotes winner-takes-all and enriches a few people at the top at the expense of the majority of our people can’t be said to be fair and just. Again, a political system that doesn’t give equal opportunity to our youth can’t be said to be fair and just.

And, for how long must we, as a people, continue to hibernate in mediocrity and glorify half-baked leadership as accepted standard in the name of party politics!

A country that is so much endowed with diverse natural resources, including smart and intelligent human beings, shouldn’t be celebrating mediocre leadership at any level of our governance structure.

We have everything it takes to develop as a nation except the right kind of leadership. The question ought not be which political party has the solution to get us out of the economic quagmire we find ourselves in because nations are not transformed by political parties.

Needless to say, all the great nations of the world were economically transformed by visionary leaders who emerged at a point in time in the history of those countries. Unfortunately for us, in the last 14 years in particular, our two political leaderships have been anything but visionary and transformative.

In a short period of 7 years, that is, in 2015 and 2022 respectively, both the NDC’s Mahama/Amissah-Arthur, and the NPP’s Nana Addo/Bawumia, took our beloved country to the IMF. O, how heartbreaking it is to see our greatly endowed country lying helplessly on the surgical table of the IMF once again!

After 32 years of NDC/NPP’s cacophonic politics of insults and deceptions, it is obvious that getting the right independent leadership is the solution we need to seek to deal with our problem.

Even when it is so apparent that both parties (NDC and NPP), through their leaders have cumulatively failed the nation, albeit President Kufuor and President Mills demonstrated relatively good leadership during their respective tenures, there are people who still want us to believe that at any point in time, one of the two parties is the best alternative to the other regardless of the kind of leader they present. How ridiculous!

If truth be told, we appear to be playing a game-of-lesser-evil with our economy. In order for us to become the kind of nation we desire to become, we must desist from comparing two average performances of the NPP and NDC, and aspire for leadership of excellence with a new all-inclusive governance model on the back of a government of national unity .

Shalom shalom!

Part 2 available

E. G. Buckman