The former national chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Peter Mac Manu has declared that Ghana has moved beyond jungle politics, in which people think they can use force and intimidation to win political power.
Speaking with Nana Yaa Mensah on Sunday Night on Asaase 99.5, Accra, Mac Manu said: “Ghana has moved out of the jungle politics where people think they can use force, violence and intimidation to achieve their objectives. Not this century. We’ve gone past that.
“I think that we are now in a civilised society; rule of law is the order of the day. If you go into an election, you get prepared, and post-election [if] you are not satisfied the courts are there.”
He cited recent court rulings in Malawi, Kenya and Nigeria that have overturned election results and said: “It’s not like the courts are being timid … they listen to the arguments, facts, evidence, and pronounce judgment.
“So we should not allow jungle law to rule in our democratic dispensation at this point in time.”
“Perception”
He argued that perception “always fuels a reality” in elections and so politicians must not ignore perceptions in planning electoral campaigns.
Mac Manu said the era of governments collapsing businesses at random is past and that Ghana’s democracy has reached a level in keeping with a “modern and civilised era”.
He said the country has gained immensely since the return to democratic rule in 1993.
“If anybody is saying that democracy has not brought any dividends then they have not really followed the history of enterprise in this country,” he said, and “we need not only count material gains”.
“Don’t blame the EC”
Mac Manu said political parties must desist from blaming the Electoral Commission of Ghana for electoral violence, adding: “That is not done anywhere.”
He said it is about time Ghanaians “distinguished between the management of election security from the electoral process” and allowed the national law-enforcement agencies breathing space to do their work during elections.
Watch the full version of “Sunday Night” with Peter Mac Manu on Asaase’s Facebook page.
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