Political Scientist and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), Dr. Kwesi Jonah, is calling for the withdrawal of the licenses of dormant political parties in the country.<\/p>\n
In an interview with Citi News<\/strong>, Kwesi Jonah said the increasing number of political parties should not be a source of worry but rather their inactivity should be a concern.<\/p>\n [contextly_sidebar id=”2L6ypZzTXmrCTwV2mXfSEthVn7L6lwRL”]He is therefore calling on the Electoral Commission to properly monitor the activities of such political parties and revoke their licenses when necessary.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Togo, they have less than 50 percent of our population; [but] they have more parties than Ghana. Mali has nothing close to the population of Ghana but they have 68 political parties. People have no idea the number of political parties that exist in the Francophone countries. So for me it is not the number that is important, it is the inactivity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Mr. Jonah argued that a lot of the political parties in Ghana \u201care dead\u201d because, \u201cthey don\u2019t contest election, they don\u2019t even call meetings, they don\u2019t hold congresses.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c…So for me it is not the number of parties on the EC\u2019s register that is important, it is their inactivity, they don\u2019t conduct any activity at all which is required of a political party. I know a party, since it registered in 1992 it has never contested any election before, what do we do about those parties? I think that is where the EC should concentrate. If a party has registered for a certain number of years but has never contested any election in this country, it is not an active party and it should be expunged from the register,\u201d the political scientist added.<\/p>\n 25 political parties in Ghana<\/strong><\/p>\n Figures from the Electoral Commission suggests that Ghana currently has about 25 political parties registered.<\/p>\n Some of the active ones include:\u00a0NDC, NPP, CPP, PPP and PNC.<\/p>\n Ban all dormant, \u2018meat-pie eating\u2019 parties<\/strong><\/p>\n The Progressive People\u2019s Party (PPP) had made a similar call to have licenses of dormant political parties revoked by the Electoral Commission<\/strong><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n The PPP argued that such political parties including the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP), the Independent People\u2019s Party (IPP) and the YES People\u2019s Party should be expunged from the EC\u2019s political parties list for being dormant.<\/p>\n The National Secretary of the PPP, Kofi Asamoah-Siaw, described the GCPP and the others as \u201cIPAC political parties\u201d who only attend IPAC meeting because of the \u201cFanta, the rice, the meat pie and the fried chicken and that is it.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the PPP, it is time the EC cleared the country\u2019s political space.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Godwin A. Allotey\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana
\nFollow @AlloteyGodwin<\/a>
\n