Senior lecturer at the University for Development Studies (UDS) Dr. Michael Adongo Ayamga has faulted the 1992 Constitution for deepening inequality in the country.
Speaking in an interview on Dreamz FM on Independence Day, Dr. Adongo Ayamga argued that the constitution created an electoral system that allows a group of people in a small geographical area to entrench their interest to the disadvantage of others especially minority groups.
In his view, an electoral system that requires a political party and its candidate to win a sizeable number of votes in every region as a prerequisite of being declared winner will ensure fair representation in government and equity in the distribution of resources.
However, the current system, he observed, allows political parties that dominate in region predominantly urban to win elections regardless of their performances in other regions.
“Our constitution still requires review, it requires replacement. Our constitution has introduced a system of ethic dominance in our politics. That’s because you have a system that allows a party to win one region plus small votes in other places and become president,” he stated.
Dr. Adongo Ayamga argued that this deepens inequality and unfair distribution of resources as it enables certain ethnic groups to dominate and entrench their interests.
He, therefore, advocates the review of the constitution or the drafting of a new one to address this and other lapses.
“So you have a president that can have a ministers made up of his brothers and his cousins all from the same place with few from another region who almost his extended family and still win election.
If we had a system that mandated a party to win a certain percentage of votes in every region, or every constituency, we would have had a better system of governance”.
However, he doubts there will be any such review anytime soon.
According to him, political leaders who should be initiating that action are direct beneficiaries of the current dispensation and will, therefore, have no interest in changing the constitution.
