General News of Friday, 19 April 2013
Source: Joy Online
A retired Supreme Court Judge, Justice V.C.R.A.C Crabbe has stated that the political system where the winner takes all will destroy the country’s 21 year-old democracy if the political leadership doesn’t change its ways.
He said this during a lecture was on the topic: “Democratic Governance in Ghana: How Political Polarisation may be abated”.
The lecture was organized by the Centre for Democratic Development, a think-tank in collaboration with Friedrich Nuamann STIFTUNG and Kaiser Permanente Medical Group and was broadcast live on MultiTv.
He condemned the current culture where after winning an election “only party faithful becomes citizens of the country while others becomes foreign nationals”.
He blamed the level of polarisation created and sustained by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) over the past years as the source of a flawed political mentality where the winner takes all and the loser got nothing.
He said this has trickled down from the composition of the membership of public boards to public toilets where caretakers of public toilets perceived to be belonging to a particular party were chased out after a change in power.
He mentioned that it appeared that although in a democracy we agree to disagree, Parliament often agreed not to disagree whenever it came to their salaries and emoluments. He cited the controversial ex-gratia package paid to former and returning MPs.
“It appears to some of us that some of members of Parliament have entered into a convenient form of marriage by which the NDC and the NPP populate by night and litigate by day”, he chided.