Sunyani Krontihene kicks against Speaker’s call for chiefs to engage in active politics

The Krontihene of the Sunyani Traditional Area, Nana Bofotia Boamponsem has strongly kicked against the call by the Speaker of Parliament, Mr Al­ban Sumana Kings­ford Bagbin, for chiefs to be allowed to participate in active party politics in the country.

The Speaker has therefore, proposed a relook into constitutional provisions that barred chiefs from participating in active politics, adding that “Ghana needs to re-orient its dem­ocratic architecture and ensure that the wisdom and expertise of chiefs can be tapped to enhance representative governance in the country.”

Speaking at a public forum in Takoradi as part of activities to mark 30 years of par­liamentary democracy, Mr Bagbin also stressed the urgent need to tackle the seemly exclusion of the citizenry from harnessing dividends of Ghana’s democratic experience.

Commenting on the Speaker of Parliament’s call in an interview with Kasapa News, Nana Bofotia Boamponsem maintaining his position that chiefs should be barred from partisan politics said traditional leaders going into politics may face lots of disgrace.

“Let’s say a Chief has gone into active politics and contesting for a seat but he does not win the election, people will make fun of him and that will cause him disgrace.

"Again, there’s a lot of verbal attacks in politics and the chief who does partisan politics will not be spared such attacks and this will be a disgrace to the stool he occupies.

"So, I strongly disagree with the Speaker’s proposal for chiefs to do active partisan politics. As it is now, chiefs are barred from active partisan politics, but they have a way of speaking about political issues that does not draw them to a particular political party because they preside over a whole town with people supporting different political parties. I think the status quo is okay and chiefs must still not be allowed to do active politics.”