Abraham Lincoln stipulated that ” democracy is the government of the people, for the people and by the people”. Countries like Ghana who adopted this system of governance must place the ordinary citizen at the center stage of any act. The ordinary individual is paramount because power emanates from them. Equality is a key ingredient in democratic governance and every effort must be ensured to protect it jealously.
In a multi party democracy like ours therefore, people must have equal right for any political activity whilst political parties have a level playing field to seek for political power. The situation in Ghana deserves a critical attention and I write to express my abhorrence to certain acts I personally consider inimical to the progress and growth of our very young democratic dispensation.
First and foremost, it is a common knowledge that democracy is expensive but inasmuch as we accept to practice it, we should not engage in certain actions and inactions to disadvantage any citizen who has an equal right in absolute participation in the democratic process. We are in an election year and I expect that we all recognize the need to involve every citizen in the election process.
It is for this reason, I was terrifically flabbergasted when I read and heard about the filling fees of the parliamentary and presidential elections. According to the Electoral commission, the presidential candidate’s filling fees stand at GH¢50000 whilst that of parliamentary is GH¢ 10000.
I consider the amount, outrageous and humongous to pay by a poor determined citizen who wants to contest in the impending elections. Does it means that if you are not rich, you cannot contest election in Ghana? Does it not also create a situation where only the rich will continue to rule the country and hence creating a sectional democracy between the rich and poor?
For me, the ramifications of paying such a draconian amount to contest elections are enormously adverse. This is the more reason why political players when capture political power try to squander our national cake in the expense of the ordinary Ghanaian because elections are now the biggest investment by people who can afford. The dire consequences are the quagmire of poverty and underdevelopment precipitated by corruption.
My understanding is that every activity by the Electoral body of Ghana is funded by the state. The EC presented a budget to the national house of Parliament which was approved. I have heard from government that money has been released to the EC covering about 90% of its budget for the December polls. I therefore find it difficult to comprehend how filling fees could be purged at such a gargantuan amount.
We have reached a stage where we should be thinking of considering state funded campaign by all political parties and those who seeks to contest elections. I have heard others argue that the said amount is not much as compared to nomination and filling fees for presidential and parliamentary hopefuls in the various political parties internal elections.
That argument does not make sense to me at all. Let me crave the indulgence of those proponents that the operation cost of those elections are fully taken care of by the political parties. The same cannot be mentioned of this impending election which is national in character and fully funded by the national budget.
We must rethink as a nation. The smaller political parties may not be in a good financial disposition to meet such outrageous charges and that can collapse their political ambitions.
Political parties have also contributed to this uncharitable situation of doing business with our democracy. The major political parties( NPP & NDC) have accused each others of vote buying. Vote buying must not be accepted. The dirty plan is to buy the conscience of the electorates. That aside, where do the political parties get their resources for such? Business men sponsor these evil acts and in the event that such parties win political power, the sponsors get their returns by way of contracts.
In fact, vote buying is fueling corruption in Africa particularly in Ghana.
Is that the democracy we choose to practise? If the ordinary Ghanaian who is capable of leading his people cannot afford to win elections, then certainly democracy is for sale and belongs to only the rich. The disregard for some of these avoidable actions has the propensity to inciting the lower class against the ruling class in the near future ( am not a prophet of doom though). This is because, there is a seemingly widening gab between the poor and the rich and this is very evident in the recent happenings in our sociopolitical terrain.
Stakeholders and policy makers must carefully examine some of these things and save our democracy. Let’s not wait for the worse to happen before we cry over spilled milk. It is better late than never.