President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said that it is also not new to have political parties and politics, in general, being denigrated.
Indeed, he said, there used to be national campaigns of fear waged against politics and political parties. It took time and it took long battles, but, in the end, a consensus did emerge, and the country opted for a multi-party democratic form of Government under the Constitution, which ushered in the Fourth Republic, he added.
Delivering the State of the Nation address on Tuesday February 27, the president said the Constitution is not a perfect document.
“Constitutions do not ever pretend to be; but it has served us well these past thirty-two (32) years, considering where we have come from. It is a sacred document that should not be tampered with lightly, but, I hasten to add, our Constitution did not descend from heaven, we, Ghanaians, drew it up to serve our needs, and we can amend it to suit our changing needs and circumstances. We should work towards finding a consensus on thechanges that the majority of Ghanaians want made to the Constitution,” he said.
He further stated that democracies are founded on elections, and the holding of free and credible elections ensure that people have confidence in the government that emerges at the end of the process.
“The Honourable Members of this House, who are at the centre of it all, know more than the rest of us that this is an election year. The increased decibel level in all communications would ensure that even the most politically uninterested person among us would know that, on December 7, we shall be going to the polls to elect a new President and Members of Parliament.
“A lot of the responsibility lies on the Electoral Commission to put the organisation in place that would ensure that we have credible elections. Government is doing its part to make the work of the Electoral Commission go smoothly.
“A lot of responsibility lies on the political parties as well, and I hope that the parties recognise that their credibility is also on the line, with some people wanting to undermine the multi-party democratic system of government. It is up to the parties to demonstrate that competitive elections are an honourable, character enhancing experience, and, at the
end of the process, the loser will congratulate the winner, and the world does not come to an end because an election has been lost. There is nothing inherently dirty or corrupt about politics, and nothing about elections that should generate violence. We, who are in politics and we who are members of political parties, owe it to ourselves, the institutions we claim to belong to, and, above all, we owe it to Ghana and the people of Ghana to make politics and elections the serious and joyful phenomenon they should be.”