The place of candour in politics cannot be overlooked. Those engaged in this noble occupation have a duty to exude this quality in all their political dealings and with sincerity.
Politics without these attributes can reduce practitioners to mere opportunists, intent only in throwing dust into the eyes of the vulnerable and gullible in society who look up to them for direction.
Local political terrain is awash with the issue of a referendum: put alternatively, a choice as to whether or not Article 55(3) and ancillary issues be amended is on the national table.
Varied opinions have been advanced about the subject, the most significant being those emanating from the political parties.
It is significant to state that the President in all his dealings with the subject has exhibited unblemished transparency. Any attempt at describing the President’s conduct contrarily is not but mischief.
Considering the strength of the two main political parties in the country and the standard for effecting an amendment to the Article under review, the numbers and consensus are key factors; the President has demanded such a direction.
We have come a long way on this tangent that the negative narrative from the NDC stable smacks of mischief and self-service.
Those who in trying to canvas votes against the amendment are giving politics a bad name so they can hang it are not exhibiting the candour necessary in politics.
If partisan politics, an integral segment of democracy, is not good at the national level it cannot pass muster at the local government dimension. Accepting partisan politics as a means of choosing national leadership only to turn round and claim it is morally wrong to apply same at the district assembly level sounds illogic and beats imagination, especially coming from persons deemed to be knowledgeable in such matters.
Those staining the name of partisan politics so that the status quo remains remind us of something significant in the contemporary history of Ghana. Time was it when the gurus and beneficiaries of the military junta stood against the reintroduction of political party activities after a long lull.
They pulled all the strings to make the move unfeasible but their efforts were short-lived and of no consequence. Epic developments such as the reintroduction of partisan politics are unstoppable evolutions in the history of a people.
It is this crop of persons who unsurprisingly are seeking to stall the amendment of the Article, political dinosaurs who want to impose their wishes on the people by all means.
District level elections countrywide are partisan political enterprise as evidenced from the body language of actors, behind-the-scene-involvement and even financial support from political parties alongside the subtle use of the colours of these groupings.
Regarding the re-engineering of the Article as a potential source of rancor at the district assembly level as witnessed at the national election level reminds us about the anachronistic Union Government mantra of the Kutu Acheampong junta.
It behoves the NDC to tell Ghanaians what informed its sudden U-turn on the subject under review.
Only mischief can account for the sudden mutation. We pause for an explanation if it would ever come.