Founder of the Liberal Party of Ghana, Mr. Kofi Akpaloo
The founder and flagbearer of the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG), Kofi Akpaloo, has expressed his disgust at the suggestion to scrap smaller political parties in the country, saying even the United States of America had about 130 political parties participating in the 2020 general election in that country.
He said anybody who makes such a suggestion does not understand the meaning of multi-party democracy, as practiced in Ghana since 1992.
Mr. Akpaloo stated that he would be naive to agree to such a suggestion to cut the number of political parties who just appear every election year to contest in the election.
When pointed out to Mr. Akpaloo that it is stated in the Political Parties Law that a political party must have branches in the various districts and constituencies across the country and must be operational to be considered election worthy, he refuted it, saying it is not true and if the country was to go by that rule then not even the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) would qualify to stand for election.
Asked if his party has offices in the various districts across the country to make it an organized political party, Mr. Akpaloo answered that “no human being in his right sense will ask you to form a party and all of a sudden when you form the party you should have offices everywhere, what is the use for it?”.
He suggested that if a political party has a national headquarters or regional offices that should suffice for any political party to stand for election for the seat of power in the country and that there should be no need to stress having offices in the various districts across the country.
Mr. Akpaloo however pointed out that the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG) has offices in all the 16 regions of Ghana manned by able members of the party and that where they deem it necessary they open an office.
He emphasized that “there is no law in the country that says that if you don’t have offices in the districts your party should be cancelled, if you show me the law, I will close down my party today”.
Mr. Akpaloo made this statement in an interview with Emmanuel Samani on the Mid Day news on TV3, Monday, August 23.
He was reacting on the heels of the suggestion by Mr. Albert Arhin to the Electoral Commission (EC) to audit and scrap political parties he called “appendage parties” to the major political parties, who do not have offices in all the districts across the country but spring up every four years to participate in the general elections.
“Anybody who says that doesn’t understand multi-party democracy, I will be so naive to sit here and tell you to cut down the number of political parties in our books.
When you go to America, even in the last election, almighty America, if I ask you how many parties contested in last year’s election, maybe you might tell me two or three but over 130 political parties contested in last year’s election in America”, he pointed out.