Democratic Sustainability

Democracy is a system of government which gives periodic opportunity for the masses to choose their leaders. A sustainable democracy is therefore a controlled reasonably high and stable level of democracy. Sustainable democracy helps increase national development.

There are numerous conditions that are completely necessary to make democracy sustainable. However, these conditions can be weakened to a larger extent.

In line out, rule of law is one important condition essential if our democracy is to be sustained. The concept of rule of law states that everyone is equal before the supreme law of the country irrespective of your status. For rule of law to function effectively and for that matter democracy, each person must be given or accorded an equal voice in the political process. Once all citizens are subject to the law including people who are law makers, law enforcers amongst Judges, democracy becomes sustainable. However, weak accountability mechanisms in other areas of government such as parliament and what happens to some observers as deliberate attempt to keep the judiciary weak allows this to come with impunity. Not this alone, rule of law in Ghana is weakened as results of the extremely low capacity of the state to enforce the law at the local levels.

Also, one of the conditions essential to make democracy sustainable is by establishing an elaborate system of local self-government. Thus self-governing institutions like village panchayats, municipalities, district boards, etc.

The importance of local self-government may be summed up in the words of Dr. Kailash Nath Katju (17^th June, 1887- 17^th February, 1968), a prominent politician in India.

According to him, “if I have my way, I would enact a law which would prescribe that no person should be elected to a legislature unless they had worked either in a municipality or in a Panchayat for a minimum period of three years. A Municipality gives the necessary experience in administration and tests the individual members as to whether they would really serve the people or serve themselves”.

However, there are certain factors that weaken this elaborate system of local self-government. For instance, inadequate funds is a factor due to the fact that the local government has no or less sources of revenue except the grants from the grants from the state and central, which also has political base rather than requirement. Local government are allowed to collect taxes from locals but due to inadequate man power, lack of digitization and awareness, they fail to collect tax to generate funds.

Another way this can be weakened is that there is no proper and serious planning about various developmental and infrastructural projects that are taken up by the government with no or only limited tangible beneficial effect on the public.

Also, there is lack of transparency as to how administration works and takes decisions, and this by no doubt leads to mismanagement and wastage of funds.

Again, to sustain our democracy, civil society and the media such as Institute for Economic Analysis, Center for Democracy and Development. Christian Council of Ghana, Ghana Legal Literacy Resources Foundation and coalition of Domestic Election.

Though civil society and the media ensures sustainable democracy, the media is insufficiently professional particularly in their adherence to a set of ethical standards. It will interest one to know that a significant element of the media has become partisans and politicized, thereby weakening its ability to provide credible and objective information.

In the next vein, for our democracy to be sustainable all citizens of sound mind and of the required voting age should be allowed to exercise their franchise in choosing their representatives and leaders in our democratic dispensation. Free and fair elections therefore are a very important and necessary element in sustaining our democracy.

Unfortunately, in our growing democracy, some political parties use dubious means to register people who are not of voting age to vote in their favor and by so doing, our sustainable democracy can be marred.

All too soon, the practice of multiparty system is a necessary tool for our sustainable democracy. For our democracy to be effective and practical, there must exist multiple political parties where citizens can choose membership. A case in point is our Ghanaian plural party systems. The existence such party plurality strengthens our democratic process thereby making it sustainable. Despite the fact that multiple party system is essential to make democracy sustainable, it can weakened through the emergence of a single party system where freedom of choosing from a lot is limited. Autocracy and dictatorship therefore occurs to disrupt the democratic discourse.

From the aforesaid, one can reliably say that our sustainable democracy is at stake.