Oquaye: Aspirants must not carry themselves as parallel presidents

PROF. Mike Oquaye, a political scientist, has asked presidential aspirants of all political parties not to carry themselves as parallel presidents.
“Without being partisan, there would always be one President at a time and, therefore, people should abstain from going about parading themselves as if there was a parallel leader somewhere. We must know this, especially, in the last few months preceding the December elections in every election year,” he said.
Prof. Oquaye, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Dome Kwabenya, was sharing his views on recent clashes between the supporters of both New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in some parts of the country.
“Presidential candidates are not presidents and should not carry themselves as such. They and their followers must give the usual and ordinary respect to the President of the Republic at all times. Also, they should bear in mind that wherever the President is, that area becomes a state security area,” he explained.
Prof. Oquaye said what happened in Cape Coast, involving the security of the state and that of the former Vice-President, John Evans Atta Mills, during the Fetu Afahye could have been averted if people had paid heed to the long-standing tradition, and also respected state security arrangements and personnel.
He said most of the clashes between political opponents in the country could have been averted, had all followed basic principles in the organisation of state functions, political and traditional activities.
“Without resort to any blame game, I am of the strong opinion that the fear of violence and conflict in nation building and democratic consolidation should teach us lessons that will make us avoid certain things that draw us back,” he added.
Explaining the issue, Prof Oquaye noted that one way of avoiding conflict was for political parties to talk about their performances or track record and other developments that had impacted positively on the lives of the electorate.
On the presidential debates, he suggested that it should not be organised in a way that would make it lose its importance and benefits to degenerate into a dirty blame game and catcalls.
He said as a result of the tension that was building between followers of the two main parties — NDC and NPP, debates must be organised without the presence of the party supporters.
The MP suggested that if the debate was a joint one, the organisers could hold it in an enclosed area, away from supporters, but with very few seasoned journalists and experts on various fields around to ask questions.
However, he added that the seasoned journalists and experts must be able to ask very provocative questions for Ghanaians to know how the aspirants could maintain their equilibrium in the face of difficulty and stressful situations.
He said the organisers could broadcast the debate on television and radio for the benefit of all Ghanaians, so that “those who would have made unnecessary cheers, catcalls and ‘chobwue’ to mar the beauty and essence of the debate could be avoided”.