An independent presidential aspirant Marricke Kofi Gane has said: “I would have also initiated referendum processes to allow Ghanaians to decide if they want party politics in the election of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs)” if he were the President of Ghana.

Even though he has kicked against district level elections being politicised, Mr Gane believes the final decision lies with the electorate.

Mr Gane, who was part of an in-studio discussion on Class91.3FM’s State of the Nation on Wednesday, 27 November 2019 on the upcoming 17 December 2019 referendum, was asked if he would have done something similar to President Akufo-Addo’s actions if he were in office.

He told the host, Blessed Sogah that: “Yes, I would have asked Ghanaians to vote whether or not they want political parties to be a part of this process”.

In his opinion, the framers of Ghana’s 1992 Constitution, after holding widespread consultations, got a sense that nonpartisan local level elections were the best for the country, an opinion corroborated by the Constitutional Review Commission.

Nonetheless, he said he would not rob Ghanaians of the opportunity to make that decision through a referendum.

His reply, however, did not please the National Chairman of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Mr Bernard Mornah, who felt once Mr Gane did not support partisan election of MMDCEs, he should also kick against any referendum on the matter.
 
“I got a little lost because I thought that Kofi was going to say, no, he will not trigger the process,” he asserted.

In his opinion, “If you trigger the process, then it means that you are even thinking about tinkering with the current solution and I think my position is that if the process has not gone wrong, we should leave it as it is”.