Ghana’s political parties are organised electoral machines – Akoto Ampaw

Mr Akoto Ampaw, a member of the National Media Commission at the weekend said political parties in Ghana were “organized simply as electoral machines” for winning political power with its largesse.

He described this as a “zero-sum approach to politics which nurtures and institutionalizes political opportunism, patronage and a Machiavellian approach to multi-party democracy.”

Mr Ampaw said this at a two-day capacity building workshop for staff of the Ghana News Agency in Ho.

The workshop, which had support from STAR-Ghana, a multi-donor funding mechanism, was to prepare the staff adequately ahead of the December Polls.

Mr Ampaw said it was unfortunate that the critical functions of political parties including the promotion of tolerance, diversity and enlightenment on programmes and policies were lost on political parties in Ghana and called for a change.

He said the situation was so bad that there were no compelling values for political parties and their leaders to feel obliged to observe instead, they were only interested in “placing their fingers into public purse.”

Mr Ampaw said the interests of the people which political parties profess to represent were lost as truths and facts were sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.

He therefore charged media practitioners to scrutinize and rigorously interrogate political leaders  so they did not short-change the development process.

Mr Ampaw said journalists’ first loyalty is to the citizenry and urged them to empower the electorates with accurate information so they could make informed decisions.

Source: GNA