How Well-Prepared To Govern Ghana Are The Opposition Presidential Candidates?

By Kofi Thompson


One's prayer, as our nation's politicians step up their campaigns for
this year's presidential and parliamentary elections, in November, is
that all the opposition political parties are putting together solid
transition teams - and, most important of all, are also actively
preparing to actually govern the country after the elections.


During the campaign for the December 2008 presidential election,
Professor Mills, who was the candidate of the then biggest opposition
party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), told Ghanaians that he
would 'hit the ground running', if elected President.


Yet it took quite some time for his administration to find its feet -
and fill many positions that should have been quickly filled if much
thought had been given to the actual governing process: and there had
consequently been prior preparation for administering the nation.


Why weren't capable people penciled for various positions, and vetted
well beforehand by the NDC, itself, at the time, one wonders?


The question independent-minded and patriotic Ghanaians ought to
ponder is: How well-prepared to govern Ghana are those opposition
politicians currently seeking the presidency - should one of them win
power after the presidential election this November?


Should opposition politicians serious about winning power and
governing Ghana still be at each others throats' for control of their
parties even at this late stage of the game - when they need to be
actively preparing to govern the nation?


What kind of an administration will a presidential candidate,
seemingly incapable of uniting his own party, form, when in power? Who
is pointing out the potential for never-ending tension and paralysis
in such an administration to Ghanaians?


Having listened to the many promises made by some of those seeking
power, ordinary people need to know just how well-prepared for
governing the country, the various presidential candidates actually
are.


The Ghanaian media can ensure that by demanding solutions for
resolving our nation's many challenges, from opposition politicians,
each time they criticise the present regime.


Being able to clearly outline sound alternative policies, to resolve
the myriad of problems our nation and its people are currently
grappling with, is proof-positive that a politician vying to be
president, is indeed well-prepared to govern our nation.


There is a world of difference between making countless promises in
order to win votes, and being well-prepared to govern the country,
after winning power and becoming president - in a nation that faces
the conundrum of having to fund its development itself whiles spending
nearly 70 percent of total tax revenues on about 600,000 or so
mostly-unproductive public-sector employees.


By what magical process is a debt-distressed nation that currently
imports virtually everything under the sun, instead of manufacturing
such goods itself, and which is said to be virtually bankrupt
(according to some opposition politicians), going to be turned into a
prosperous one within four years - when all its traditional cultures
kill curiosity in the young and its educational system seldom produces
innovators who can effect dramatic change in society?


Can our commodity-based national economy - the health of which is at
the mercy of the volatility of international commodity prices and
realistically will take nearly a decade to be transformed - really be
turned into a booming economy producing wealth and jobs within four
years by any political party in Ghana, today?


And will politicians whose inner circles are criticism-averse, and
frequently resort to the Machiavellian controlling-tactic of
intimidation-by-proxies, to cow free-spirits and the
independent-minded within their own parties, guarantee the freedoms
needed to spur the creation of an entrepreneurial culture that will
bring about prosperity in Ghana? Food for thought.


Be that as it may, at least one hopes that as we speak, all the
opposition politicians vying for the presidency in the November
elections, are at least actively preparing to govern Ghana effectively
- even as they criss-cross the country campaigning to be elected to
the very important position of President of the Republic of Ghana.
They have their work cut out satisfying a disgruntled and
disillusioned populace. For Mother Ghana's sake one wishes all of them
well.