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Participants in a forum in Ho have recommended the enactment of a law that will compel political parties to align their manifestos to a national development plan. According to them, the approach of successive governments ruling the country based on their party manifestos without recourse to a national development plan was the bane of development in the country. They, therefore, stressed that manifestos of political parties should not deviate from the national development plan, although they might differ in methodology or approach. The participants, who made the recommendation last Tuesday at the fourth in the series of regional consultative forums under the auspices of the Institute of Economic Affairs /Winner-Takes-All (IEA/WTA) Advisory Committee, said it was important for all Ghanaians to put the interest of the nation above partisan politics. The committee was seeking the views of Ghanaians on rethinking the �winner-takes-all� political system in the country and other pertinent national issues in the hope of influencing their incorporation into the review of the 1992 Constitution currently in process. The ultimate aim of the committee is to ensure that Ghana is rid of the tension and acrimony that characterise the country�s political space, especially during elections. Political interest The Paramount Chief of the Ziavi Traditional Area in the Volta Region, Torgbe Kwaku Ayim IV, observed that politicians normally worked in the interest of their political parties at the expense of national development. He said politicians only pursued what was in their party manifestos instead of the national interest, adding that even education had been politicised to the extent that depending on which political party was in power, the duration of senior high school was either three or four years. �Our system of governance is just not in a balance,� he remarked. For his part, Alhaji Omar Odinga said during the political season, a common campaign platform should be mounted for all the political parties in order to ensure that they did not deviate from the national development agenda. Sharing similar concerns, one of the participants said the reliance of politicians on their party manifestos to govern was like a person setting his own examination, marking the script and passing himself. Discrimination The Ho Municipal President of the Ghana Federation of the Disabled, Mr Alex Korsi Akpo, expressed concern about discrimination against persons with disability in national matters, saying such attitude was not in the interest of all-inclusiveness. He said, for instance, that after the government had legislated 30 per cent women representation in public appointments, when it got to the turn of persons with disability, the language of the government changed. Many of the participants supported the recommendation to scrap the �winner-takes-all� system of governance because it was the basis for the political acrimony in the country, and commended the IEA for the campaign against it. Disagreements However, others expressed contrary opinions to the suggestion, insisting that there was nothing wrong with the �winner-takes-all� system of governance, except the negative attitude of people towards politics. An official of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Volta Region, Mr Kwasi Aboagye, said the �winner-takes-all� system of governance was historically entrenched and that �the syndrome of perpetuity is very sweet�. The Eastern Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP), Akuriba Yaagi, said the Western countries had practiced the �winner-takes-all� system of governance for more than 100 years. He said the system had been practiced in Ghana for only 20 years and so there was the need to tread cautiously in campaigning for a change of that political system. Another participant said there were more pertinent issues than the �winner-takes-all� system of governance, such as political malaise even among the academia and tribalism. Opening remarks In an opening remark, a member of the IEA/WTA Advisory Committee, Dr William Ahadzie, said the �winner-takes-all� system of governance was a mechanism for political discrimination, recrimination and exclusion, apart from creating rancour, enmity and division. He, therefore, stressed the need to rethink that system of political governance in order to secure the country. Another member of the committee, Mr Kabral Blay-Amihere, said the whole exercise of rethinking the �winner-takes-all� system of governance was to reduce tension in the country. In a speech read on her behalf, the Volta Regional Minister, Ms Helen Adjoa Ntoso, lauded the IEA for its campaign, saying it was appropriate given the precarious political situation in the country at the moment. She said it was important to explore every effort towards finding an appropriate political system that would be in the interest of the country. The Vicar General of the Catholic Diocese of Ho, Rev Monsignor Anthony Kofi Anane Kornu, who chaired the forum, said having recognised the harm in the �winner-takes-all� system of governance, many developed countries were working towards coalition and all-inclusive governments.