137-137 equation in 8th Parliament is democracy at play – Kufuor

Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has said that the number of seats being occupied by both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), 137-137 seats in Parliament, indicate that Ghana’s democracy is growing.

In his view, it shows that the electorate are discerning and can change their minds at anytime if they feel dissatisfied with the performance of their leaders.

According to Mr Kufuor, this should serve as a warning example to all persons seeking to put themselves up for elected positions in the country.

Prior to the 2020 polls, the NPP comfortably controlled 169 seats as against the 106 controlled by the NDC.

The governing party lost 37 seats in the last elections to now control 137 seats, the same number for the NDC and one independent lawmaker.

In a recorded interview with TV3’s Alfred Ocansey which was aired on the Ghana Tonight show on Thursday August 4, Mr Kufuor said “I believe it is a clarion call to us to appreciate that people will change their voting patterns within just a short space of four years.

“People who went in voting massively for one party and then within four years, they seem to be reversing their opinion. I felt that was democracy at work and it should be a warning to those of us who would offer ourselves to be considered by the people.”

He added “Truly, I believe the real sovereignty is in the people, they are the sovereign authority with the right to choose who should lead and right to also withdraw their selection. What happened should be taken as a serious thing to aspiring politicians, that if you want to lead the people, understand them, be on their right side, you shouldn’t underrate the populace or the electors. Lincoln once said you can fool some of the people sometime but not always, the day of reckoning will come and then they will throw you out.”

It is recalled that the Director of Communications for the NPP Yaw Buaben Asamoa in February this year wondered why his party squandered the overwhelming majority it controlled in the 7th Parliament to now be on the same level with the NDC.

Yaw Buaben Asamoa who also lost his seat as Adentan Member of Parliament says that this result came at a shock to them having implemented, in his view, some of the best policies and programmes to touch the lives of Ghanaians.

Speaking on the New Day show with Johnnie Hughes, on TV3, he said “Having expected the qualities of our policies, I believe they were policies that impacted on Ghanaians. We had to deal with the fundamental issues affecting the lifestyle of Ghanaians and then having successfully exited the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“During that time, in spite of the conditionalitIES, we had started implementing our flagship programmes and those programmes were programmes that impact on our key issues, social vulnerabilities, employment , income , access to education health, as well as infrastructure, roads, energy sector, and then we had that kind of results, I was included myself, I lost my seat , it was kind of surprising.”

He further indicated that “The part as it always does after every election set up a committee to inquire into the causes, when we win or lose. This time it was led by the Honourable Osafo Maafo.

“They have come up with the various reasons why but clearly it looks like it is region and constituency specific because the president did very well even though he drops votes, his 500,000 margin was still the second highest ever in the 8 elections we have had in the Republic so the president did very well.

“Incumbency has the tendency to whip you a little harder than you would expect because when you are an incumbent, just like we are now, you have to grapple with or confront the problems of the day, problems that sometimes you don’t even anticipate and most of those problems demand immediate solutions.

“So incumbency tends to, kind of drain good will a bit, but at the end of the day the resilience of the substantive policies still counts.”

Source: 3news.com|Ghana