With barely three months to Ghana’s 2016
general elections, it has emerged that “the issue of language is potentially the
most dangerous threat to this year’s elections”, thus according to the Director
of Research at the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping and Training Center (KAIPTC). Dr. Kwesi Aning further indicated that political parties have flouted
inherent laws and regulations intended to guide their utterances, especially
communicators of those parties.
He said a research by the KAIPTC showed
that “it is politically profitable to be perceived to be abusive and
threatening. Your chances of landing a ministerial position are actually much
higher if you’re perceived to be one of the people who are tough and
threatening, which is contrary to the principles and values and norms that
underpin the political party system in this country.
“So there seem to
be an inherent contradiction between what the political parties claim they want
to do and what is inherent in their manifestoes and what their important
supporters do and it is that lacuna that is contributing to creating that
politics of fear and withdrawal.”
Dr. Anning was speaking in an
interview on TV3’s New Day on the brouhaha surrounding the outgoing Moderator of
the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and the National Peace Council and other major
factors that bother on Ghana’s political landscape.
He bemoaned the lack
of will power on the part of leaders of political parties to punish persons who
go contrary to expected decorous language especially in the political space.
He also cautioned the media to be circumspect in the content they churn
out especially in this season when politicians may try to use all kinds of means
to canvass for votes. |
