National interest needs to override cheap politics

By Rev. Fr. Dr. Stephen Ntim

I have always been intrigued with the democratic process that is gradually getting entrenched in our politics. Parliamentary sessions are clear manifestation of serious discussions with the aim of arriving at consensus for the benefit of the citizenry.

Ministers of State are routinely subjected to serious questions and answers. All this tends to put Ministers on their toes when coming to give reports to Parliament.

The opposition, whether it is NPP or NDC, always put the government in check and the party in government cannot afford to take anything for granted. This is what democracy is all about: legislators agreeing to disagree so as to arrive at the best decision for the nation.

This is what makes democratic form of government beautiful and one of the best as opposed to autocracy, military dictatorship and totalitarianism. However, where this writer has personally faulted our democratic process is the seemingly propensity of some of our politicians, including seasoned ones, seeking cheap political marks at the expense of national interest.

Some will even go to the extent to peddle lies to make the other side of the political divide or a high ranking political figure appear as if they do not or he does not care about the citizenry. This writer is of the considered opinion that at this point of our political maturity, politicians need to go beyond the usual tendency for excessive partisanship and lie peddling.

Cheap claims
All too soon, parliamentary and presidential elections will be coming up. Any casual observer of our politics will see the political lies on the part of some politicians so as to win cheap votes from the less sophisticated Ghanaian voter.
On one occasion for example, we all heard one Presidential aspirant making the claim that when voted as the President of the Republic of Ghana, he will make education free from basic school up to the University!
Such a claim is not only impossible at this time and age with a population of about twenty million and a national budget that is supported heavily from external sources, but an affront to the intelligence of the Ghanaian.

This is nothing short of cheap politics. Such a claim is simply not possible. For sometime now, we all have not been happy at all with the electricity load shedding. Governments over the years should have come out with some solution by now.

The usual problem of Akosombo going down as a result of lack of rainfall has been perennial for years now. Why has it taken governments so long to find a lasting solution? We cannot apportion blame on any one government.
We need to condemn all governments past and present for not holding the bull by the horn to solve this problem once and for all. It is for this reason that we expect all politicians and their parties to be fair in their criticism on this energy crisis.

When the incumbent President of the Republic, not too long ago went public to announce that some temporary help might be coming from Nigeria and the Ivory Coast and the help did not come, (obviously due to some other unforeseeable reasons), we heard of the hullabaloo and the public outcry. Some politicians felt that this was their gold mine. They quickly cashed in.

Some referred to the President as a liar. In all honesty, if some of our politicians and their paid serial callers on our airwaves will develop a taste for objectivity, and look at issues with a high sense of political dispatch, and not play cheap politics, how will some one intentionally choose to tell the whole nation a lie, at the risk of his personal integrity, as well as the integrity of his office (as the highest office in this country), if he was not really convinced at the time that help was going to come from outside?

Let us not forget that no beggar has a choice. Some politicians make a lot of rituals out of this. This writer, without holding brief for any politician is of the view that the fact that one holds different political orientations or philosophy from that of another, does not ipso facto make the person an enemy to such an extent that we find the least fault to make cheap politics.

Political maturity also demands that we do away with mediocrity in all its forms – and scoring cheap political marks by needlessly finding faults, peddling lies, opposing just for the sake of opposition, without seeing anything good either from the incumbent or from the opposition appears to be nothing short of mediocrity and political myopia.
This in the considered opinion of this writer is a serious lacuna in our democratic process that needs to be attended to by politicians.

Givings credit where it is due
We have come a long way in our political journey. We expect our politicians on both sides of the political divide to give credit where credit is due. Opposition and criticisms are basic ingredients of democracy.

These notwithstanding, they must be objective. At the end of the day, the overriding reason for the criticisms and the opposition from both sides is for the common good and the over-all national interest.

Politicians of both sides need to remember that unbridled partisanship is the breeding ground for political lie peddling, needless political insults, witch hunting into the private and personal lives of public figures, cheap political popularity and press conferences and counter press conferences, hopping from one FM radio station to the other in Accra and Kumasi in a desperate bid to paint the other political opponent black.

We need to be wary of these things. They appear to some of us to be getting out of hand, instead of putting our energies together to solve pressing problems. In fact they can be irritating to many ordinary Ghanaians who care less about partisan politics.

After all what is important is the national interest and not partisanship. It is about time to stop the cheap politics and collectively put our heads together to find lasting solution to the perennial energy crisis.

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