Lecturer at the Department of Political Science of the University of Ghana, Dr Kwame Asah-Asante, says throughout Ghana’s history, threats and violence have not won any political party electoral victory.
According to him, the path to victory has often been paved with political messages that have resonated well with the masses; hence, political parties should desist from the use of threats and violence to try to win the 2024 general elections.
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, he stated that the recent incendiary comments being peddled by the two major political parties are only undermining Ghana’s electoral system and in general the country’s democracy which will not bode well for any of them.
He thus urged them to stick to messages that would proffer solutions to the economic downturn facing the country.
“Coming back from history you’d realize that nobody has won any elections using threats or violence, all right, it doesn’t work for anybody. If you really want to serve the people, you need to develop messages that resonate with them. That will, you know, address some of their problems so as to win their hearts and mind.
“So if you have people who will not think along these lines, and they see themselves as into believing that if you issue threats, if you want to undermine the system with hate speech and the rest of them, I’m afraid they’re [not] going to countenance that,” he said.
Meanwhile, the lecturer says the rise of violent language during political campaigns especially is a reflection of society’s failure to thoroughly punish politicians who use them.
He said, if the country had been more serious about preventing such language from being used during such tense periods, it would not be the political fad it is now.
“But sometimes, I blame ourselves as a society. We have not punished them. We see these things coming up every time we going for elections and then immediately after elections we forget about it only for it to resurface when we’re going for election.
“But if we had been serious about this issue, and had punished them so much so that it would deter them, I’m sure by now they would have listened, and they would have learnt a lesson one or two.
“But I believe that all is not lost yet, we need to make sure that we put certain institutions on the ground and ensure that these are political actors will obey them, respect them. Whoever crosses the line we should not hesitate at all to punish them by way of throwing them away,” he said.
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His comments follow inflammatory statements made by Minister of Agriculture, Bryan Acheampong that the NPP would by whatever means ensure it does not hand over power to the NDC at the end of the 2024 general elections.
His statement has been widely condemned by civil society organisations and the opposition NDC; the latter has petitioned the IGP to arrest and interrogate the minister concerning his comments.
However, the NPP have defended the statements saying that they were merely in retaliation to the “do or die” comments made by former President and aspiring NDC flagbearer, John Mahama.
The ruling party has also since petitioned the IGP to arrest the former president and the NDC chairperson for also using incendiary comments concerning the 2024 elections.