General News of Wednesday, 15 June 2016

Source: ultimate1069.com

Winner takes all is military regime - Ayariga

Flagbearer of the All PeopleFlagbearer of the All People

The Flagbearer of All People’s Congress (APC) Dr. Hassan Ayariga, has described the Ghanaian political system of winner takes all as a ‘military regime in disguise’.

According to him, it is wrong for just one political party to have access to all state resources, saying the Ghanaians who are living in oblivion are ruled by a military government.

"Apart from God’s power, the next power in the world is political power and there is no power beyond political power, it is the same as military power if you don’t look at the dynamics, so we are practicing military regime in a disguised way and we don’t know," he asserted.

He called for a review of the constitution saying the constitution drafters have done the country wrong.

He blasted constitutional drafters for compiling a constitution that only suited the administration of the former President J.J Rawlings.

According to him, those who drafted the constitution did it to favour the former President by giving him all the powers as a constitutional leader.

‘Our fathers and men who drafted the constitution realized that there was too much power at the military regime and wanted the former President Jerry John Rawlings to accept democracy, they had to draft the constitution in a way to correspond with his powers as a military man. They did that and gave him all the powers but as a constitutional leader. So we have what is called winner takes all. When you become the president of Ghana, you have so much executive powers just like any military leader can do, but you are elected,’ he fumed.

He believes that past presidents of the republic of Ghana equally had executive powers like military leaders.

‘The situation where the leader has all the powers to appoint and to sack is wrong so we in APC think no, there should be an all inclusive governance concepts,’ he suggested.

Speaking on Kessben fm hosted by Omanhene, he called for amendment of the constitution to reduce too much power from the presidency and give economic power to stakeholders than political power.