Change the system, tweak the
Constitution
E. Ablorh-Odjidja
August 05, 2014
The current political arrangement in Ghana is not working too
well. Some are quick to put most of the blame on the nature of
our "Imperial Presidency," rather than think that the problem
lies with the characters we recruit into the presidency.
Effective "Imperial Presidency" works. Unless you are not able to
find the right character to fill the office.
The imperial, under any description, and in the hands of the
right personality, works.
It worked for Singapore
under Lee Kuan Yew, Turkey under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Germany
under Von Otto Bismarck, America under Franklin D. Roosevelt and
many more.
But in Ghana, we pretend the "Imperial Presidency" never worked.
That Nkrumah was a deranged baby-sitter and Governor Gordon
Guggisburg
of the Gold Coast was a mere Boy Scout troop leader.
So we worry about personalities getting into the presidency who
were willing to use the power granted by the Constitution
effectively, when our real worry should be about the useless pretenders the
Constitution
allows to be in office for full terms as presidents.
Our current Constitution allows a political arrangement for the
presidency, which is much like the
American system, and unlike the British
system.
In the British parliamentary system, a prime minister's term is
not fixed and can be ended by a "no-confidence" vote and/or a
call for new elections.
In the American presidential system, "snap-election" is not an
option. The president, elected separately from his party members
in Congress, has a fixed term of four years; unless he is
impeached and forced out of office.
The American fixed system brings stability and predictability to
administrations for a set term.
It is not a perfect system, but its faults are made
tenable by the flexibility of the federal system as state
governments could pick up the slack in some aspects of
administration when federal leadership
fails.
Ghana, though has a copied American system, lacks the sophisticated safety
factor within the American federal system.
Not only does she lack the federal factor, but there is also a
question of an absence of a Congress, within which the political
system evolves and checks and balances are provided to rein in
powers of key governmental institutions like the presidency.
Thus, the copied
American system gives Ghana a powerful "imperial" presidency, with
not much the check and balances obtained in America.
The federal
aspect of the American system is also not much of an option; given the threat
that tribalism holds for
us within our regions.
The fact is, there is nothing wrong with an "imperial
presidency" in Ghana if only it is working.
It
should be noted that the problem arises only when a lackluster
leadership gets into office, not when a real "Imperial Presidency" is in
place and working; as under Nkrumah and Governor Gordon Guggisberg (yes, he was imperial).
But there is a need within our context of an "imperial
presidency" for damage control, just in case a bum gets into
office and remains at post for at least four years.
Otherwise, why should we care if any president gets into office
and is effectively
taking care of business during his term allowed by the
Constitution?
We have had ample chances for change. Mostly, we did it
with coups and elections. No matter what we did in the past, we
never were ale to change the character of our presidency.
Both the competent and the incompetent, whether through coups
or elections, have had the same access to "imperial" power.
Elections, often chaotic and expensive, have been staged and stolen. People have been killed
through coups (the most useless type of the changes) and
subterfuges. But we ended moving into the same place of power our
bad incompetent chief executives.
The incompetent executives have been corrosive with their ineptitude for change in our political system.
But, why must we as a
country suffer an incompetent president for his entire term
in office solely on the basis of a mistake?
This must be a root question for the
Constitutional reform process. Critical in this process
must also be a requirement for rule for the president and
the party that puts him into office. And the guard rail
for rule are:
When a president's regime is overburdened with debt exceeding
a given, substantial portion of the GDP.
When the cedi exchange rate is falling fast.
When the
country is beset by infra-structural challenges.
When there are
mountains of garbage on the streets of our towns and villages.
When corruption in the governing party is rampant and
persistent.
Above all, when a president and his party seem to be clueless in the face of these
disasters, it will be time to declare that his regime is in distress
and to pull the brake on his term.
The target to go after under this set of conditions is the ineffective president
in our "imperial presidency" system, not the effective
president under the same.
Kufuor had the same "Imperial" presidency recently.
He was effective. He was a doer. Thus when a doer is in office,
we leave him
alone to do his job, regardless of our differences in ideology.
The call for removal must come as a vote of "no-confidence" from
Parliament. The threshold for the vote must be a simple majority, followed by
a snap-election.
This call can only be made by
Parliament.
The election that follows must be quick, under a decree of
emergency. No lengthy campaigning period. No waste of public
money. And no party decals and instruments. Just the public and
a list of names on the ballot box.
An open canvas for the most competent candidates in the society
must be the approach. Candidates can come, with or without political party affiliations.
A Kofi Annan type can be such a non-party affiliated citizen
candidate.
There should be no room for adventurers or people of mere notoriety.
The challenge will be a referendum between the sitting, incompetent
president and all on the ballot. And whereas a challenger may
win by a simple majority, the sitting president will require 70%
of the vote to keep his presidency.
Again, the mission is not against the effective "imperial president,"
but one to get rid of an incompetent executive.
Some may worry that the simple majority vote threshold required will
make it easy for political mischief.
Rather, a simple majority
provides no certainty for the opposition or the incumbent
party's victory. It gives room for the independent minded to be
relevant, regardless of their party affiliations.
The same
president, if perceived as effective, can be returned after
victory (70% of the vote) for additional four years in office.
president sitting president. This is not a provision
for political harassment of the executive.
This new approach will allo citizens who otherwise would be made
faceless by the rigid party primary system.
However, given the entitlement mindset of our current political
activists, this new arrangement will be resisted.
In all
probability, there will be attempts by the political class in
Parliament to thwart initiatives advanced by the newly installed
outsider president. He would have no party identification
or support in a contemporary parliament.
But, such can be expected. He will have to rule in all
instances with the vote of the simple majority.
All the public needs to know from the new president is his goal.
That times are desperate and we need to come out of this
state. And that his objectives and goal are meant to do
just that..
He or she must come to the presidency as a strong leader, which role the "imperial presidency"
already allows. And that he has the tools to accomplish his
mission.
But his ideas must be bold ones like Nkrumah's and still be able to pursue them as respectfully
as Kufuor, for example,
did with his own plans.
Effective "imperial presidency,"
therefore,
is the job requirement, not the problem.
But no more coups, please!
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC,
August 05, 2014
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