Run-off would confirm preference of electorate - CDD

Accra, Dec. 24, GNA - Prof. Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi, Executive Director of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), a civil society and governance think-thank, has said Ghana's next Sunday's presidential election runoff would confirm the preference of voters for the best kind of national democratic governance.

He said the runoff would make the electorate make up their minds where they were not so sure of their choice of the party to run the executive.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in a comment on the December 28 runoff, Prof. Gyimah-Boadi, who is a political scientist, described the runoff as the best thing that happened to Ghana's democratic governance.

He said the timing was also very significant since Ghanaians would make sound judgment in electing one of the two contending parties - the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the largest minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) - to run the executive for a third term. Each of the two parties, he said, had had equal chances of two terms since the country re-entered constitutional rule in 1992 and Ghanaians now could better assess their performances and decide who to run the presidency.

Prof. Gyimah-Boadi said the nation now had two fairly mature dominant political parties.

"There is now real evenness in electoral strength and party capacity," Prof. Gyimah-Boadi said. He said NPP had moved towards the right of centre and the NDC to the left of centre with very little variation, but Ghana was naturally a two-party state.

Prof. Gyimah-Boadi said with neither of the two major parties having a resounding lead, either of them could end up as the governing party.

"Whichever party wins the presidential race would have a government with a very strong opposition," which, he said, would be ideal for democratic governance. Prof. Gyimah-Boadi said the nation was likely to have a split parliament but "we are still going to have an institution that is better configured for democratic governance".

He, however, said the minority parties might continue to survive despite their little comparative numbers in the Legislature. Prof. Gyimah-Boadi said benefits of the runoff outweighed the cost as it was a post-election conflict prevention mechanism, adding that, the political troubles in Kenya after their recent elections could have been prevented if there was a runoff.

The figures at Electoral Commission website credit NDC with 114 out of the 228 parliamentary seats declared, while the NPP has 107 seats, People's National Convention (PNC) has two; Convention People's Party (CPP) has one seat with the remaining four going to Independent Candidates. 24 Dec. 08