Dr. Alidu Seidu, a political science lecturer at the University of Ghana has urged legislators to act in the interest of the nation as their retention or otherwise is dependent on it.
Speaking in an interview, he outlined the important and indispensable position electorates in various constituencies occupy in determining the fate of a parliamentary candidate.
“Once you go to parliament as an independent or through the vehicle of a political party, it stands to reason that you need to consider the interest of that political party in the house of the legislature and sometimes political parties can be stubborn when they want to achieve an agenda in parliament”.
According to him, although political parties play an integral role in the life of an MP, the constituency has the final say in who represents them and not necessarily the political party a candidate is affiliated to.
“The constituency is the focal, it is very important in the categories of representation. Even at the end of the day, they will vote you in Parliament and vote you out of Parliament. Your political party may deselect you, your constituency can bring you back to Parliament as it has happened in Fomena.
“Your political party can support you and your constituency will vote you out of Parliament. So, of all the permutation, I tend to believe that, the constituency is very important”.
Touching on developmental projects in the various constituencies, he intimated that, it “is the role of the MP to lobby” the government of the day and follow through with its implementation.
Conversely, he explains implementation of policies may prove cumbersome when legislators in the majority are in opposition to the incumbent government. That notwithstanding, he asserted that lobbying can still be undertaken to achieve developmental project.
“What some people do is that, they go outside government business, lobby NGOs…to be able to bring funding to be able to bring to bear some of the promises they have made to the people. So, there should be so much education on the function on the Member of Parliament.
“Traditionally, if you look at development at the local level, it is entirely the responsibility of the local government system. So, MPs can lobby their DCEs, sector ministers [and] a lot of people so that they can get a lot of the things that they want for their constituencies done”.
Dr. Seidu noted that, in cases where it becomes difficult, MPs will have to exemplify how “representative they are” in fighting for the interest of constituencies in power.
“It becomes very difficult where if there’s a split in political parties that come and political parties that leave, the best thing government will have to do is to lobby behind the scene”.
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