Where I stand on the 17th December Referendum
I am going to vote NO to political parties sponsoring candidates for elections at the local government level in Ghana. This is because there is an urgent need for constitutional, legislative and administrative reforms in the governance architecture of the country. Such reforms are necessary to strengthen the checks and balances that will make the three arms of government, especially the executive, and also the civil, local, and public servants transparent and accountable to the citizens. There is also the need to strengthen and enforce the Political Parties Act, 2000 (Act 574) that regulates the formation and operation of political parties so as to bring sanity and decorum to our multiparty democracy.
I am begging fellow Ghanaians that we should use this opportunity offered us by this referendum to send a clear message to our political leadership, especially the two dominant political parties, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Party (NDC), that we are not happy with how they have steered our multiparty democracy at the national level and we would not allow same at the local level. It should also be a message to His Excellency, the President, Nana Akufo-Addo, to follow through with the constitutional, legal and administrative reviews required to make multiparty democracy work for all Ghanaians and not only for the members and sympathisers of the political party in power.
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