The Economic Fighters’ League has reiterated its advocacy for a new constitution.
This time, the group’s Commander-in-Chief, Ernesto Yeboah, dwelt more on revamping the electoral system through which political leaders are selected.
Ghana currently runs on the ‘first-past-the-post’ principle when it comes to parliamentary polls.https://www.youtube.com/embed/LvoDlOiSWe4?feature=oembed
This system provides for voters to cast their vote for a candidate of their choice. In doing so, the candidate who receives the most votes wins.
But Ernesto Yeboah wants this to be scrapped and replaced with the proportional representation approach in Parliament.
He insists the ‘first-past-the-post’ system contributed to the loss of valuable resources which could have propelled the country’s fortunes in a far more positive direction.
“We want more women and more youth. We want our best and scarce brains. I don’t think we are making very good use of the likes of Kweku Baako and Kwesi Pratt in the country. We have reduced them to radio talks and television programmes and that’s just it.
“But with proportional representation, these knowledgeable men and women we have in our society could have a place to, as it were, influence policy conversations and discussion and all of that,” he told Samson Lardy Anyenini.
He was speaking on the special edition of Newsfile dubbed the Joy Change-Speakers Series II.
In a brief presentation, Mr Yeboah explained that some of the issues that must be tackled in the reforming of the Constitution include the promotion of inclusion and conviction.
This according to him, will lead to the maximisation of the country’s human resources.
“One of the things that we are looking at in this new constitution is to strip Parliament of constituency representation and leave that to the DCE,” he added.
“Leave Parliament to represent their political parties. If we want to be truthful to ourselves, do Members of Parliament, do they speak to the concerns of their constituencies or they speak to the concerns of their parties. On E-Levy, how many of them spoke to the concerns of their constituencies? If they did, E-Levy would not have been passed.”
These recommendations among other things, Mr Yeboah believes, will galvanise the nation in a more salient manner than the current structure being employed.
source myjoyonline.com