A senior lecturer in the Department of Political Science at the University of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Asah-Asante has called on the Electoral Commission to take a second look at the existence of smaller Political Parties, known in Political Science as “Half Political Parties”.
He said the proposal from the National Democratic Congress suggestion that parties without parliamentary seats must not have the same voting rights as those with seats during Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting should be a National interest to see whether they have a place to be on the ballot during an election.
Dr. Kwame Asah-Asante, speaking on the Center for Democratic Development Ghana survey on Current Political issues said the Electoral Commission is failing to crack the whip and if immediate steps are not taken, more Half Political Parties who will not bring anything to the table will be formed.
The Lecturer said the EC performing abysmally in terms of implementation of the rules regarding who qualifies to be described as a Political Party, adding, apart from the NPP and NDC, no other Political party is present in 2/3 of all Districts across the country as the electoral stated.
He said, ” I am worried to the extent that anytime we go for the second run in the election, these half Political Parties push us to the difficult era because we need to pool resources to fund elections and it is only 2020 that EC said they were funded by the Government.”
He said the half parties since 1992 have not obtained more than 4% in total valid vote cast if you combine all of their votes and noted that if Ghana continues to depend on foreign donors to support election, any day they hold Ghana ransom, there will be Constitutional crises.
Source: Mybrytfmonline.com/Kofi Atakora
