Director of the Centre for European Studies of the University of Ghana, Prof. Ransford Gyampo has called for the institutionalization of presidential debate in the Ghanaian electoral calendar.
According to Prof. Gyampo, the institutionalization of presidential debate in the electoral calendar would make it mandatory for every presidential contestant including the sitting president to participate in the debate.
He believes institutionalizing debate would ensure that politicians are held accountable to the electorates. He argued that the contest for the mandate of the people to govern them must be done in a healthy debate of ideas devoid of insults and personal attacks.
“Some Serious Accountability Mechanisms including the conduct of Presidential Debates, have somewhat already evolved and must be institutionalized. Winning elections must not be as a result of insults, mudslinging and vituperations. It must solely be as a result of a healthy contest of ideas in an institutionalized debating culture, in the lead up to elections,” he stated.
Justifying the need for it to be institutionalized, he recounted how former presidents of the country took part in previous presidential debates when they were not presidents but refused to participate in similar debates when they were elected as presidents.
The political science lecturer also questioned why politicians call for debate in opposition but oppose same when they are in government stating that it is imperative to ensure that presidential aspirants, whether in power or not, do not have a choice in participating in a presidential debate.
Prof. Ransford Gyampo’s opinion follows former president Mahama’s challenge to president Akuf-Addo for a debate between them on their governments’ achievements on infrastructural development.
The governing New Patriotic Party has however turned down the challenge for a debate between its presidential candidate and the NDC’S presidential candidate describing it as unnecessary. The party said it has presented its infrastructural achievements to the Ghanaian people through an online portal and challenge the opposition party to do same instead of calling for a debate.
The issue of which government has a superior record of achievements in infrastructural development has become topical after the vice president of the republic who is also the vice presidential candidate of the governing party stated in a Town Hall meeting that the Akuf-Addo-led government has unmatched infrastructural achievements in its first tenure of office.
