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Can an honest person, who doesn’t lie and misinform voters, win an election in Ghana?
This week a Ghanaian Member of Parliament confessed that he lies and undermines opponents and opposition to win elections. I expected many comments on the confession but strange enough (at least to me) it hardly attracted any comments nor follow ups in the press.
I was wondering, was that because the Ghanaian voters already classified politicians as liars? Or was it because the opposition is doing the same and couldn’t take the lead to oppose and correct the behavior of this MP?
This Honorable (although lying is not that honorable) stated: “Yes, we undermine and tell lies to win elections”.
If you confess to be a liar to win elections, will you not lie when the opposition proposes bills and laws to parliament to “win” your case?
Or when you give information to parliament do you lie and give wrong information?
Do you do that because the opposition also lies?
Do you tell the truth if you are under oath in front of, for example, the internal audit committee, or in front of a sole commissioner or another judge?
During the vetting process of opposition Ministers, the same who confessed to be a liar called other MPs lairs in a discussion in the beginning of the year.
If you admit to lie to win elections, and obviously you are not alone, then let me ask you the following question:
Can an honest person being a Flag Bearer for a political party ever become a President in Ghana?
Because no matter how much he preaches the honest truth and true facts, his opponents will destroy his ideas and image by lying and undermining this honest person, eventually resulting in the person losing elections based upon lies.
In the same interview it was also stated that politicians do all these things because the people in your constituent lack the understanding of the work or duties of an MP.
If I was a constituent of you, I would have asked you to step down as an MP because you have been insulting your constituents’ intellect, your voters and the democratic system in general.
There will always be cases and laws before parliament which are too difficult for laymen to judge and discuss, but lying means misleading, do you think it’s normal to mislead the good people of Ghana?
In my humble opinion, the target of opposition is to advice and correct the ruling party based upon open mindedly shared different views and solutions for your country.
And convincing the ruling party based upon checked facts and comparing their solution to the opposition’s solution upon which a balanced decision can be made.
Don’t forget that as soon as you become an MP, you swear an oath to serve all the people of Ghana, and not yourself nor your voters nor your party alone.
Obviously, you and many others in Ghana, Africa and other parts of the world, unfortunately, seek the path of opposition because of opposing the opponent.
This means lying that the opposition’s solution is wrong, just based upon being against because the (maybe) genius idea came from the opposition and not from your side of the political arena.
One of the advantages of getting older is that almost everything you experience today can be compared to an earlier event.
I admit it will be very difficult to get a President in Ghana who is and has always been honest. The reason is that, even if such a person exists, he/she would never get the chance to “grow” within the ranks of the dishonest and lying politicians.
Probably that person will leave the party already long before he can start his way up the ranks because the rest of the lying and corrupt pack will never trust an honest person and will be scared that one day that person can expose them.
A good example is former Russian president Gorbachev, do you honestly believe that if Mikhail Gorbachev wasn’t a good communist and enjoying the party’s personal favors would ever have been able to grow within the ranks of the communist party to become the President of Russia and de facto cancel communism in Russia?
Another example, do you believe that President de Klerk of South Africa, was against apartheid from the day he became a member of the (white) National Party of South Africa, would ever be the President who started negotiations with Nelson Mandela and ANC to cancel apartheid?
Neither do I, so my best wish is that we have a “mildly dishonest” person who will be able to grow into the ranks of any of the political parties, becomes the President of Ghana and then cancel corruption by declaring zero tolerance on corruption and introduces consequences to MPs misinforming the good (voting) people of Ghana.