98% of voters don’t care about manifestos – Obiri Boahen

The presentation of manifestos does not play a major role in winning an election because most electorate will not read them, Deputy General Secretary of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) Nana Obiri Boahen has said.

Mr Boahen, who was speaking with Prince Minkah on Class91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast on Monday September 19, held the view that Ghanaians would assess their standard of living and vote based on that and not necessarily on the content of manifestos.

Asked by the host whether he implied Ghanaians did not vote based on contents of manifestos, he responded: “I can assure you that about 98 per cent of Ghanaians who will be voting… how many of them can read and write?” he questioned.

He doubted that most of the electorate would read and scrutinise the content of manifestos of all the political parties.

“You people sit in Accra and think the whole country is Accra. Come to the countryside, go to the villages and rural areas and see the poverty and hardship. A man cannot get money to pay the child’s school fees and you are talking about launching of manifesto,” he added.

He said people were finding it difficult to even mobilise GHC1 to buy ‘koobi’ (salted tilapia), adding that such issues would inform how people vote in the upcoming elections.

For him, the manifesto launch by the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) was only a platform for entertainment.

“If they have organised a jamboree under the guise of launching a manifesto and they entertained themselves, rained insults on the NPP, why don’t we allow them to do what they like, after all 7th December is just at the corner,” he noted.

He stressed that the manifesto was empty on pragmatic measures to address the issues of Ghanaians as “mature minds are not happy about governance in the country”.

He said the NDC’s manifesto launch will not compel the NPP to also launch its policy document since it was no “rat race”.