When one observes events in countries practising democracy where there are at least two dominant political parties (ruling and opposition), the relationship between them is very adversarial.
Perhaps how democracy is designed as a system of government naturally leads to an adversary.
At the same time, though, because of what is at stake — the welfare of citizens and the development of a nation, there is an expectation that adversaries will ultimately or most often give way to consensus building.
But how many of us can honestly say that there is consensus building these days?
The onus of consensus-building does not fall solely on opposition political parties, but for the purpose of this reflection, I focus on their posture in the governance space and ask what motivates them.
Are they motivated by the governance imperative of oversight and accountability of the ruling party?
Are they motivated by weaponising current events with the end goal of winning the next election and returning to power? Or are they motivated by both?
Oversight and Accountability
A vibrant opposition is important for oversight and accountability purposes.
Take the executive branch of government, for example, and the oversight role the legislative branch is tasked to exercise over it.
How often, in today’s democracies, do we see that oversight role exercised when the executive (presidency) and legislature are controlled by the same political party?
It is very rare.
In fact, when the legislature is controlled by the same political party as the executive, the former is more likely to defend the latter than hold it accountable for its actions and inactions.
This happens because increasingly, party loyalty has become an essential ingredient in democratic politics.
This hesitance to exercise oversight and demand accountability from the executive because of party loyalty creates a vacuum, which needs to be filled.
This is where a vibrant opposition becomes critical to filling that oversight and accountability gap.
In addition, ruling parties tend to believe in the soundness of their policy and programmes designed to address the many public problems citizens face. However, such an attitude creates blind spots which can lead to policy inefficiencies.
Again, this is where a vibrant opposition party is needed to draw attention to those blind spots and help strengthen the prescribed policy solution to a public programme.
Unfortunately, ruling parties with majorities in legislative bodies can still evade attempts by opposition parties to play this oversight and accountability role. It, however, does not mean that opposition political parties should not play this oversight and accountability role.
Motivated by Politics
On other occasions, the posture and activities of opposition parties appear to be driven by a single desire — capitalising on what it believes are the missteps of a ruling party for political gains.
When motivated by politics, opposition parties constantly watch the actions and inactions of a ruling party, not for the benevolent reasons cited above (oversight and accountability) but rather for what they can seize upon and weaponise to their advantage.
In such moments, the desire to cause dissatisfaction among citizens for a ruling party is strong, and all efforts are made to make sure that happens.
When politics is the main motivation, the relationship between the ruling and opposition becomes even more adversarial, with both sides taking very entrenched positions on a given matter.
A further consequence is the absence of any desire for compromise and consensus-building.
Why do opposition political parties do this? In a democracy with competitive elections where power rotates, every opposition party wants a return to power.
And to be able to do that, partly requires causing enough dissatisfaction among citizens for the ruling party.
It does not mean that ruling parties, by their actions and inactions, cannot cause citizens to become dissatisfied with them.
Nonetheless, whatever can help speed up the return to power for opposition political parties becomes fair game.
The Solution?
This phenomenon is not unique to Ghana’s politics.
The constant bantering between our two main political parties (National Democratic Congress and New Patriotic Party) occurs in much the same way as that between the Democrats and Republicans in the United States, for example.
How then do we get opposition political parties in democracies to reconcile the two motivations?
It will be unrealistic and impractical to ask them to focus on more noble goals and eschew politics, especially because of how polarised political parties have become.
Reconciliation is made more difficult by the fact that the next election is always on the horizon, which provides perverse incentives to prioritise politics.
In the end, it is up to voters to decide which approach they will politically reward based on their own lived experiences.
It is up to citizens to recognise which approach helped address their socio-economic pinchpoints or not.
The writer is the Project Director, Democracy Project.
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh
