Former Member of Parliament for Nandom, Dr. Benjamin Kumbuor has told the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) that there are more pressing issues happening in the country that must be tackled than the 8-year electoral cycle they are thinking of breaking.
For him, there are some actions ongoing that are violating the constitution which must be broken, not an 8-year electoral cycle.
The NPP are seeking to break the 8 year cycle in the 2024 general elections. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said that he was determined to hand over power to the next presidential candidate of the New NPP in the 2024 general elections.
In his view, this will enable the NPP sustain the economic growth seen under his administration.
Speaking at the NPP’s delegates conference in Kumasi on Sunday, December 19, 2021, he said “I am determined to hand over the baton to the next NPP presidential candidate.
“We want to break the 8 not just for ourselves but for Ghana because we know the zigzag, NPP comes to clean for them to be polluted, this is not the way progress will be brought to our country.
“We need a secure period in office to make that irreversible change in the fortunes of our nation and we are capable of doing it. We will get a candidate that will unify our party and all of us will campaign to make that candidate the next president of the Republic.”
But Dr. Kumbuor who is also a former Defence Minister said this idea solely depends on the voters.
Speaking on the Key Points on TV3 with Dzifa Bampoh, Saturday, June 11, he said “Of course, a number of very strange political passwords normally come up in our political system. When I started hearing about this break the 8, I wondered what exactly it meant. The idea is basically, that almost every government has gone through a cycle of 8 years and that the NPP intends to break it. Well, that is their wish and nobody can take their wish from them but if anybody was to ask me about breaking the 8, I will say that what needs to be broken in Ghana is, let us break the undemocratic practices that we are carrying on. Let us break those rules that flout the constitution so openly. These are, for me the issues we should be breaking.
“As for breaking the 8 in terms of an election battle and who comes into power, it is neither here nor there. The voters of Ghana are the only ones who will decided whether an 8 can be broken or not.”
He further indicated that a period is fast approaching where parties will not even have 8 years to govern than talk of breaking the 8.
“I think they should also be looking at the possibility that from the trends that I have been reading, a time will come that no political party might even reach the 8 for it to be broken.
“If you see the 2020 elections, you see clearly that the 8-year thing was almost truncated because the electorate really don’t have the luxury for allowing any party to come into power with very lofty promises and only comes in and start raising issues that were not the issues on which the people voted for them. So let the people dream of breaking the 8 but there are more fundamental things to break in our democracy than in an election cycle.”
