THE BEAUTY OF POLITICAL ALLIANCES

THE BEAUTY OF POLITICAL ALLIANCES

Prior to the election day, Ghana has seen history in the making. For the first time in its democratic history, some Presidential aspirants were disqualified. Interestingly, some were later cleared to contest the 2016 elections following the Supreme Court ruling.

MOVING ON

Faced with the bitter truth about missing out on any opportunity to become President any time soon, some of these aspirants have moved to openly declared support for other political parties with utter disregard for differences in policies. The leader of the Ghana Freedom Party quickly jumped back onto the campaign trail of the NDC. The Presidential aspirant for the APC stated he would go to court but promised not to hold the country to ransom by putting an injunction on the general elections. Just when we had moved on from the disqualifications, the leader of the DPP, Thomas Ward-Brew took the Electoral Commission back to court. The court however disqualified his lawsuit. For Kofi Apaloo of the IPP, he is ever ready to accept an appointment for the NPP should they come into power. Well that exposes where he stands. It is not an unusual practice but one would think the differences in ideologies and policies would have influenced these decisions.

Some have argued that the alliances of the smaller parties with the major parties would not have any significant effect. But I beg to differ. In an election where 50 percent plus one (50+1) is needed for a winner to be declared, even one vote makes the difference. These smaller parties have a significance influence when it comes to these pre-electoral alliances. If a candidate gets 50 percent of the votes and a smaller party brings one vote to the table, guess who the decider of the election is. Yes, that’s right. Major political parties cannot do away with the “little” help the alliances bring.

Another thing these alliances bring is resources. All resources hitherto controlled by the smaller parties before the alliance are now at the disposal of the parties they join. These include, cars, financial and human resources.

I have however wondered how the images of the disqualified aspirants affect the parties they form alliance with. On the other hand, I think these alliances speak of unity. No matter our differences, we can still come together. Even though we have exchanged some harsh words prior to this point, we can move forward together. That is the beauty of political alliances.