Tomorrow hopefully, the New Patriotic Party, the incumbent political party in the country goes through another democratic process, voting to elect parliamentary candidates to represent them in the national elections.
This is actually a big deal now as most media houses have begun to discreetly take coverage of this exercise. By now, eligible candidates are under mixed feelings waiting to see how much the delegates would live by the promises made to them during their campaign.
Ghana has been accorded as one of the giant democratic countries in Africa, from our so-called peaceful elections and transmission of power from one political party to the acceptance of multi-party system of which characters like Akua Donkoh could stand for a presidential position, this is just the least to prove that indeed this is a democratic republic.
The primaries are the elections made by delegates that is an internal election to choose a candidate who would contest against other political parties in the national elections. Therefore it is equally important as much as the national elections especially if you find yourself in an area deemed a strong hold for your political party; this would make it easier for you to win in the national elections should you win in the primaries.
The previous weeks have been coupled with ridiculous campaign promises some of which being the buying of cars for over seventy delegates, a woman who promised on a radio station of building a library, a micro finance company, social center, ex-gratia for retirees and so many other promises. I call them dangerous campaign promises which any smart delegate should flee from because it is evident how these politicians are going to recoup back such unforgiving losses they make through such absurd campaign exercise.
Four years into the administration of the current government, it doesn’t come as a surprise as campaign promises still look stagnant and not forthcoming. The silence of citizens isn’t a sign of contentment but discontents as a result of the repetitive absolute failure of both past and current political parties.
It keeps getting murkier each passing day. The loss of trust in the system such as hospitals, judiciary, education, etc, corruption on an industrial scale, poor standard of living and the unquestionable profligate looting of state funds and resources where the rich keep getting richer and the poor getting poorer makes me wonder whether there is any difference in our current life and the then colonial system.
It is supposed to be debatable but any observant detailed person would realize that, the same things our political fathers fought against and for us because of colonialism had reared its unpardonable head again but this time in a hopeless way. Hopeless because we are suffering from two modern colonialism effect at the moment which is the internal colonization by a group of so called political elites and the pathetic neo-colonialism by the external forces.
The controllers of the internal political parties have amassed and shared wealth among themselves to the extent that it is extremely difficult as an outsider and a regular citizen like myself to have a comfortable life in Ghana. Then coupled with greed or ignorance liaise with the international bodies to subdue us into the new form of colonization; neo colonization. So, instead of the past where our dilemma depended on only one form of suffering being colonization by the Whiteman, we are painfully enduring a double form of this same moth.
Now, taking a retrospective look, it was evident that, systems in the colonial sector worked better than now and the quick way our founding fathers wanted to gain independent seemed unprepared. There was a desire to manage our own affairs but we could not manage that which was bestowed on us by the intruders. Perhaps there should have been a more enduring spirit to study and to know more by the mode of operations by our colonial masters before quickly wanting to take the scepter of rulership. If not, then all the current happening are just intentional selfish bid by this political parties to drain citizens for their own current and future generation.
Imagine selling your citizenship right to have a better standard of living for one thousand Ghana cedis for the next four years. That is what happens when you decide to take such a penny to vote for an irresponsible candidate. Who are even the responsible candidates?
Source: Ghanafeed.com
