REPORT OF THE Ad Hoc Committee On U. G.

By Osei K. Boafo, 
Korle Gonno. Асста.

The Non-Party State

In the first instalment, our main purpose was to call attention to the seeds of potentially violent conflicts between the Armed Forces and the civilian population arising from the fact that the Ad Hoc Committee on Union Government has rejected the power-sharing concept which was central to the S.M.C.’s proposal a Union Government.

But mention should also be made of some of the weaknesses in the Committee’s methods of work and conclusions on the other crucial issue the S.M.C.’s attempt to banish political parties. The ultimate low point to which the Committee’s members seem to have been driven by their prejudicial terms of reference is found in paragraphs 359 and and 360 of its report. Having shown a commendably liberal attitude towards the need for Ghanaians to enjoy the fundamental human rights, with adequate means of enforcing such rights, the Committee then turns round to say

“However since what is envisaged is a government in which parties have no place, any definition of the freedom of association would necessarily have to exclude the freedom to form parties. This in itself may not occasion any real loss of democracy, provided viable and genuine surrogates (sic) are found the representation of the people… (hence).”

“in respect of the freedom of association, the constitution should rule out the right to associate for the purpose of forming a political party.”

What this means in effect is that Ghanaians may freely join together with likeminded Ghanaians in football, in farming, in co-operatives, in trade unions, in churches, in marriages, even in secret societies—in everything except in the pursuit of common objectives in the vital sphere of politics!

In delivering itself of this remarkable judgement the Committee seems to have swallowed a lot of bogus sociology and selective history. When introducing his Committee and trying to justify the prejudiced terms of reference that he had to surprisingly (for a former High Cont Judge) accepted to work under, Dr. Kotanteng-Addow tried to persuade himself and the rest of us in a radio/television talk that our social system did not permit us to practice the party political system like the people of the civilized/advanced countries did.

Since then there have been many references to what Prof. Arthur Lewis said about consensus  and “the zero sum game” by advocates of Union Government who clearly did not understand what he meant and would not even take the trouble to quote him correctly.

With regard to our own experiences with party politics in Ghana since 1949 the newspapers, radio and television for months past, and the Committee’s report in some of its most melodramatic passages (eg. paras. 197 and 198), have pointed a lurid picture of incessant

“hostility, brawls, and tragic events ….. suffering, murders, tortures and agonies which party politics imposed on the community ….. several families broken up ….. citizens went into exile.”

Perhaps the Committee did not command detailed personal memories or historical records to know that Ghana (like many other countries with a political history spanning nearly 30 years of mass movements) has had many periods of violent strife and ugly politics as well as, undoubtedly, many periods of orderly and even exemplary party politics. But at least all its members are old enough to remember that descriptions such as that quoted above simply cannot be made to fit the most recent period of party politics which they all witnessed in Ghana under the Second Republic from October 1969, till 12th January, 1972.

And if they did not remember, at least Mr. Joe Joe Appiah ought to have been asked to give them evidence to show that the miserable performances of his UNP in the 1969 elections were because his agents were being tortured and murdered all over the place by thugs, before the Committee subscribed to that sort of history. Setting up straw men in order to knock them down is a child’s game. It is a pity Dr. Koranteng Addow allowed himself to be dragged into it. But then one remembers that this is the sort of history that General Acheampong and his supporters have been quoting day in and day out, and that the Committee’s terms of reference invited them to subscribe to it.

It is an even greater pity that the Committee did not try to analyse what the essential differences were between those periods when Ghana had beautiful party politics  and when she had ugly politics. To this writer, the differences lie in whether the rules of of the party political game were being observed enforced (eg. when the colonial power still had control in 1949-54 and when the NLC and the Busia Government were playing according to the law) or were being flouted and bent, as in the long saga of the CPP’s attempt to achieve monolithic power which brought Ghana’s politics to the nadir of the one-party referendum of 1964. The chance missed to further the political education of Ghanaians by drawing the lessons of our own history.

It is, of course, possible to plead that the Committee did only what it was supposed to do, that is, propose a scheme for a non-party constitution. But this would not be sufficient. Because the Committee showed some initiative and went beyond its narrow terms of reference to recommend what is essentially the American system of government—complete with a Presidential “ticket” (surely the most American of political concepts) and congress-type committee hearings. It was therefore incumbent on the Committee to ask whether the American (and most other countries) party political institutions were essential to the successful operation of the whole political system or were inessential appendages.

Thus, to consider just one aspect, what use will there be in a President securing election  on the most sensibly designed programme if he is precluded by the law of the constitution from organising members of Parliament to vote funds for the implementation of the programme? Indeed, how could a Presidential candidate produce a realistic set of policies for consideration by the electorate if the law says he may not set up a political organisation with people who hold similar views to advise him on the  practical details of politics, economics, defence, agriculture, etc. etc.? 

It shows how impractical the Committee’s recommendations are that in discussing the relationship between the proposed Executive President and the legislature (paragraphs 271, 272) the Committee does not even consider the implications of the fact that (presumably) Parliament will have the power of the purse while the President and his cabinet are excluded from membership of it.

To its credit, the Committee seemed to be aware that in banning political parties it was denying Ghanaians the vital function that an opposition party plays in criticising government policy with the clarity of an outsider’s view and exposing abuses of power. But it still lent its weight to the silly notion which the press and radio and all the from the S.M.C. downwards have spokesmen of Union Government been peddling: that the talents of those Ghanaians who are assigned this crucial role in the system of Government are thereby “wasted, lost to the development”.

And what substitute does the The fatuous Committee propose for a political irresponsible notion that we can replace an organised Parliamentary on of opposition with a combination of an independent judiciary (para 230: “in the absence of political parties the judiciary should be the bastion of the individual’s liberty and rights”) an advisory (para. 307: “in the absence of an organised opposition group”…) the Council of State is one of the few institutions which could be used  (by whom?) to stem possible excesses by the Executive”), an Ombudsman (para. 368:  to challenge administrative malpractices, especially corruption and bureaucratic insensitivity”), and a free press (para. 242: “the Press must be free from Government control to serve as the watch dog of the citizens rights and  liberties and to fearlessly expose wrong doing in government the and in the society.”

The Committee never stopped to ask why other countries which invented the independent judiciary and free press and the other institutions that we are being advised to copy, also think THEY NEED INDEPENDENT POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS INCLUDING POLITICAL PARTIES, IN ORDER TO OPERATE A DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM. And it would even deny the people of Ghana the right  to be adequately represented by full-time conscientious M.Ps by proposing that Parliamentary pay should be only marginally livable. Such an untenable proposal is light-heartedly made on the basis of the same kind of phoney historical “evidence” that para. 336: “in the light of the experience of this country financial rewards have been the overriding considerations (sic) for the urge to seek membership in the Assembly.

One wonders: just how much money did Mr. Joe Appiah and Mr. Kofi Badu, and other apostles of Union Government, confide to the Committee that they hoped to make when they stood for election in 1969? And failed to make by losing the elections?