NDC And NPP Duopoly: A Threat To Democracy In Ghana

John Forbes Nash, the Nobel Prize-Winning economist in his book captioned “A Beautiful Mind” showed that two powerful competitors frequently end up locked in a stable, mutually beneficial dance of tit-for-tat – they collude, in short, to carve up a captive market. Essentially, this collusion against the interest of customers produces an inevitable revolt, sweeping one or both dominant players into the dustbin of history.

This economic fact is particularly relevant to the analysis of what transpires in the current political landscape in Ghana as it is dominated by two political parties, the NDC and the NPP. Currently, the duopoly of NDC and NPP soaks about 85 percent of electoral market share. Though rhetorically and theoretically at variance with one another, the NDC and the NPP have seemingly managed to create a mostly unbroken set of policies and governance structures that benefit well-connected groups at the painful expense of the masses. Most Ghanaians are increasingly alarmed and alienated as the NPP administration and its NDC successor rubbished public opinion by institutionalizing corruption, not modernizing the educational system, not criminalizing gay relationship, not addressing the winner-takes-all syndrome, and not dealing with other socio-economic ills in the country.

I highly credited Kuffour with his initial determination to weed out corruption during his administration by finding and prosecuting corrupt officials from his predecessor regime. There weren’t any trappings of witch-hunting associated with that as a section of the public purported to make us believe. Those found guilty through the judicial process were thrown to jail while the innocent ones were set free. However, Kuffour must deservingly be discredited for presiding over a massive corruption episode ever in the anal of Ghanaian political history. One would have expected the current NDC administration to live up to its avowed values and philosophy of probity and accountability by rounding up the perpetrators of corruption in the Kuffour administration to face the wrath of the law. Interestingly, these are not in the vocabulary of the scheme of things in the current administration.

Paradoxically, the officials in the NDC administration are always quick to insincerely justify and rationalize their inaction to try the corrupt officials in the Kuffour regime citing the need to halt a cycle of political hatred in Ghanaian politics. This argument is preposterous, isn’t it? The truth underpinning the NDC’s irresponsibility and lack of political will to find and prosecute Kuffour’s corrupt officials including himself is what the former president Rawlings referred to as “scratch my back and I will scratch your back”. It is alleged that the NDC and NPP, the duopoly political forces in Ghana have tacitly colluded in erecting a roadblock to the desires of Ghanaian voters who demand probity and accountability of public office holders. The two dominant parties think by preserving the duopoly and enter into scratch-my-back-and-I-scratch-your-back marriage of convenience; they will be able to ensure stability of their respective electoral market share. But there is nothing stable about two organizations dominating a particular market especially when social and technological changes enable captive consumers to flee.

Apart from the few voter beneficiaries of the rotten political system who sympathize with the system, overwhelming majority of the electorates are consumed with fury pushing to confront the status-quo. The successive governments had the opportunities to address corruption which is incontrovertibly the bane of our nation’s development but they happily passed them up. Now, the people whose right to the enjoyment of the national cake equitably is trampled upon will rise and unimaginably revolt to put the NDC and NPP duopoly into the dustbin of history.

There is extremely voter disaffection in Ghana today because each government is the same in the eyes of the electorates. Rather than conducting polls as to which party will win the 2012 general elections, organizations that conduct such polls should rather expend their resources to zero in on the electorates’ party identification. They may do this by asking such relevant question as “In Ghanaian politics today, do you consider yourself an NDC, NPP, or Independent?” Most voters are likely to answer, Independent. This is because more and more voters who hitherto identified with one of the two dominant parties or the other certainly identify themselves now as independent representing the will of the people. The phenomenon where people will feel embarrassed to be associated with either NPP or NDC is in the offing as both parties are increasingly losing credibility in the eyes of the voters due to their connivance to plunder the nation’s resources.

The politicians who have ears should listen, the worst of Egypt, Syria, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen is on its way to Ghana if greed continues to be glorified. Naturally, people enter into politics to serve the people but in Ghana, the opposite is the case since politics in Ghana is seen as an avenue where wealth can be amassed at the speed of light.

N/B: Check my next write-up on the unfettered judiciary in Ghana and how to bring sanity, responsibility, and accountability in the judicial system.

Chick Nokwarebour is a social commentator based both in the USA and Ghana. He can be reached at chickndika@yahoo.com