Political scientist, Dr Kwame Asah-Asante, has expressed the need for media outlets in the country to come together and organize a live debate session for presidential candidates in the leadup to the 2024 elections.
According to him, this is vital, especially considering the exchanges on the successes of both flagbearers of the NPP and NDC who have served as Vice Presidents in the country.
He revealed that Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s sentiments on John Mahama’s record as a President and Vice President is simply opening him up for all manner of attacks.
Nonetheless, Dr Asah-Asante stated that Dr Bawumia’s posture could also be a defense mechanism against equal attacks from John Mahama.
“So, records will come up for discussion and I believe that that will begin to usher the campaign into its full swing. I hope and pray that they will move along this line instead of sticking to swipes and character assassination. We don’t want that; we want real issue discussions.
“I will propose that the media should create a platform where there’ll be a live debate on the issues and let’s see ‘who is who’, and that will also give citizens the opportunity to interrogate the issues, assess the issues, and at the end of the day make informed judgements about it…”
Dr Kwame Asah-Asante,
In spite of the seeming attack of personalities between the flagbearers of the two major political parties in the country, Dr Asah-Asante highlighted that the most important thing during their campaigns will be to come up with messages that will really stand the test of time.
He explained that both parties can play propaganda and do all manner of antic, but at the end of the day, they have to keep Ghanaians in mind since they are the consumers of their messages.
“So, that will usher us into another realm – the realm of records. Remember that politics is contest of ideas and referendum of your work, so, you see people are now calling for ideas. Come out with the ideas you have about the problems and solutions of this country. People are also calling for the records – if you listen to the Vice President, all that he is saying points to the fact that ‘tell us what you did when you were in office’.”
Dr Kwame Asah-Asante
Campaign train of NPP, NDC
Commenting on his impression of the ‘Thank You’ tour undertaken by both flagbearers, Dr Asah-Asante noted that the campaigns have just started, and they are gearing up, getting the messages right and making sure that they “ginger everybody” for whatever they have for Ghanaians.
To this end, he emphasized that Ghanaians are looking forward to a campaign that is “devoid of rancor, bickering and violence”.
“We want to have issue-driven campaign so that we can interrogate the issues and decide which of them is worth our leadership. So, for me, so far, it’s early days yet but I think that we’ll be able to organize a [clean] campaign and it should be issue-based.”
Dr Kwame Asah-Asante
Meanwhile, Dr Asah-Asante stated that mini campaigns started by the two flagbearers is gradually picking up, albeit they can do more in that regard.
“We are getting bits and pieces, but I will pardon them in the sense that the campaign has not fully started. So, I’m sure for now, what they’re doing is to get all their acts together and launch their campaign in full swing. For now, I think we can forgive them, but we believe that wherever they are, if they really want to get everybody along, they should begin to send a few of them out for us to know that they have something different from the previous years and they are ready to deal with our problems head-on.”
Dr Kwame Asah-Asante
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