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Executive Director of the Institute for Democratic Governance, Dr. Emmanuel Akwetey, says while political incendiary comments are harmful to the nation’s stability; it is good they are coming up early for them to be condemned.
He said recent inflammatory comments made by political actors undermine the country’s democratic credentials as they threaten to incite party sympathisers to take violent action at the least provocation in the run-up to the 2024 general elections.
He noted that the recent antics by political players is mainly due to their overconcentration on their parochial political interests rather than the common good and thus has to be checked.
“To go straight to the issue of threatening that no matter what, whether you win or lose you wouldn’t hand over power? I mean, that violates, it undermines democracy, liberal democracy, multiparty democracy… And I think that it ought to be condemned in no uncertain terms but that is not enough,” he said on JoyNews’ PM Express.
He added that “I have a feeling that the old politics of violence or the third term, each of them have had equal two terms in office and therefore the third, who gets the third term has become so important to this game they’re playing.
“And I think it’s not necessarily going to happen the way, but it’s good it’s come up early and we ought to address it squarely because if you violate the norms, the cardinal norms, the elite consensus that underpins things then you’re undermining the whole democracy.”
Dr. Akwetey stressed that political commentators and politicians in general should be wary of their inflammatory comments and its repercussions on the Ghanaian polity.
He cited the recent collapse of democratic regimes and the growing jihadist insurgency in the West African region as reason not to use incendiary divide-and-conquer tactics to score political points.
“And as I’ve said earlier, our parties should know that these are not good times for us in our region. The risk around us calls for our coherence and national unity, our vigilance, so that we wouldn’t have jihadists infiltrating and creating havoc.
“Our division will lead to our losing out on this battle. And so I think it’s good that they’ve spoken early so that we can condemn it all round and provide the options, the tracks that they should rather pursue in the national interest,” he said.
His comments follow inflammatory statements made by Minister of Agriculture, Bryan Acheampong that the NPP would by whatever means ensure it does not hand over power to the NDC at the end of the 2024 general elections.
His statement has been widely condemned by civil society organisations and the opposition NDC; the latter has petitioned the IGP to arrest and interrogate the minister concerning his comments.
However, the NPP have defended the statements saying that they were merely in retaliation to the “do or die” comments made by former President and aspiring NDC flagbearer, John Mahama.
The ruling party has also since petitioned the IGP to arrest the former president and the NDC chairperson for also using incendiary comments concerning the 2024 elections.
