CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME, POLITICAL PARTIES

THE political atmosphere in the country was aroused early this week with the news of the election of the flag bearer for the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP) and the formation of a new party, the New Vision Party (NVP), with barely six months to the December polls.
This year, being an election year, has given impetus to these events naturally receiving very good coverage in the media and the significance of the coverage should not be lost on us.
For a party that has been in existence for more than a decade, it was expected that the GCPP would have established itself as a very credible political party with the clout that can place it in a good position to properly govern the country, if it were ever given the mandate to do so.
But time and again the GCPP appears to be withering into oblivion and projecting itself as a party lacking any serious agenda. Indeed, what happened in Kumasi during the national congress of the party to elect its flag bearer perhaps mirrored the fact that the situation was taking on the semblence of a joke and called for urgent action to address it.
That is why the DAILY GRAPHIC finds it quite untenable that about 70 delegates out of the expected 1,500 turned up to elect a flag bearer for the GCPP for the December polls. Also disturbing is the fact that the party held only one of the mandated 10 regional congresses in the run up to the national congress.
Definitely this cannot continue, as we need to preserve the dignity of the land, and that is why the EC must be up and doing to ensure that the laws of the land, with respect to the operation of political parties, are respected.
Some of the political parties that have been given certificates to operate do not have national and regional headquarters, let alone operate offices in two-thirds of the districts in the country as required by law. Yet the EC looks on in helpless amazement.
Again, the DAILY GRAPHIC wishes to raise concern over the philosophy guiding the formation of the New Vision Party and the granting of a provisional certificate to same by the EC.
We are baffled with regard to the mandate of the New Vision Party, as there are strong indications that there is a religious interest attached to its operations. If that is the case, then it is clearly in breach of Article 55 (4), which states that “every political party shall have a national character, and membership shall not be based on ethnic, religious, regional or other sectional divisions”.
In an era when there is a campaign for state funding of political parties, we need to project political parties as serious public interest organisations with the right structures and the right calibre of people to make them vibrant and effective.
Anything short of that will be a drawback in our quest to establish a formidable democratic system that can stand the test of time. In this regard, the DAILY GRAPHIC wishes to challenge the EC to rise up to the occasion and deal decisively with any political party that flouts the Political Parties Law.
It is no longer tenable for the EC to say that the strict interpretation of the laws will lead to the withdrawal of the certificates of the parties.
If the political parties must lose their certificates because they cannot measure up to the requirements, so be it Ghana will be better off with two or three political parties that are prepared to be subject to the law. Respect for democratic tenets, including respect for the law, must begin with the political parties.