The election of MMDCE will eliminate any winning policy at all – Asiedu Nketiah | Policy

Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, Secretary General of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), reiterated that the election of District, Metropolitan, Municipal and District (MMDCE) leaders would eliminate the problem of win-win policy in Ghana .

Winner-Take-All is an electoral system in which a single political party can elect all positions in a given constituency or jurisdiction.

This contrasts with proportional representation, in which several political parties can elect posts in proportion to their voting power.

"Our politics and our elections have become so controversial because everyone thinks you have to be on the side of the president, who wins, otherwise you are a minor citizen in the country."

Mr Asiedu-Nketia said this during the weekend in Accra at a multi-party conference organized by the Ghana Conference of Catholic Bishops with funding from the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.

"If you have a system where control of local government institutions can be shared between political parties; even the smallest political parties can focus on one particular district and make sure to elect a WMDR so that they also have the opportunity to participate, "he said.

"This is the best form of power sharing and it will make our elections more peaceful; because if you lose the presidency, you have not lost everything, you have at least a chance to participate (in the election of the MMDCE). "

The conference aims to sensitize Ghanaians to the next referendum on the election of the MMDCE, scheduled for December.

Section 55 (3) of the 1992 Constitution prohibits the sponsorship of election candidates by political parties in district or local government elections; However, the ruling government of the new Patriotic Party (NPP) has proposed to hold a referendum to amend the constitution to allow the election of district badembly members and MMDCE on the basis of representation of political parties.

Mr. Asiedu-Nketia said that for the people to control the district badembly, the constitutional provision that gives the president the power to appoint 30 percent of the badembly members has lost its usefulness.

He also noted that after applying the 1992 Constitution for more than a quarter of a century, it had become very clear that the provisions prohibiting partisan politics at the district level had become obsolete, "said the president. where the need to re-examine them.

Regarding the current referendum on the election of the MMDCEs, Mr. Asiedu-Nketia said: "We are talking about universal adult suffrage as the basis for this election. But we are going to the referendum and we will register the voters ".

"We have raised the problem that the system that was put in place to register voters before the elections will result in the loss of 1.2 million Ghanaians.

"And so I would like everyone to study the facts and see how, if you are talking about universal adult suffrage, it should be universal adult suffrage."

He stated that Ghana's statistical service had forecast a population that could be registered rising to 1.7 million; However, the Electoral Commission set up a system to register only 500,000 people.

"And we say that please, if you opt for adult universal suffrage, whether it is universal adult suffrage, there is no point in trying to suppress the vote of whoever it is either, "he said.