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Press Release
NPP
November 24, 2014
STATEMENT BY NANA AKUFO-ADDO,
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE OF THE NEW PATRIOTIC PARTY, AT
THE CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL DEMOCRATIC UNION (IDU)
IN SEOUL, REPUBLIC OF KOREA, ON 21ST NOVEMBER, 2014 ON
“STRENGTHENING FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY;
MEETING NEW CHALLENGES”.
It is with considerable pleasure that the Ghanaian
delegation from the New Patriotic Party has come all the way
from Accra, capital of Ghana in West Africa, to this
splendid city of Seoul, capital of Korea in East Asia, to
attend this year’s IDU Conference. Korea is one of the great
success stories of the modern era, a country which, within a
generation, transformed itself from a poor, agrarian economy
into a leading industrial power, and, happily, it is a
sister party, the Saenuri Party, that has the democratic
mandate to manage its affairs.
It is now generally accepted that we, who are gathered here
and other like- minded people, have won the ideological
battle that raged for much of the twentieth century. We, who
advocated for a multi-party system of government, backed by
the rule of law and respect for human rights and a market
economy, driven by private enterprise, have won the battle
of ideas. But the war to build a better world by
strengthening freedom and democracy is far from over.
Let me use our experience in my country, Ghana, to tell you
some of the challenges that we now face as we seek to
strengthen freedom and democracy.
My party, the New Patriotic Party, though technically only
twenty-two years old, is born of a political tradition that
goes back some seventy years. That tradition has been
principally responsible for leading the fight for democracy
in our country. Even at the height of the Cold War, our
political forebears never wavered, even at great personal
cost, in their insistence that democratic ideals and a
market economy represented a surer path to progress than the
authoritarian, one-party socialist model then fashionable in
the so-called Third World. They rejected the view that you
had to give up many freedoms to be able to have rapid
development. Hence in 1992, at the inauguration of the
Fourth Republic, when we formed the NPP, we adopted the
slogan “Development in Freedom” as our catchphrase to
reflect our philosophy.
Elections, and dare I use the cliché, free and fair
elections, remain the bedrock of a true democracy and the
running of credible elections pose a big challenge to many
democracies. The need for credible elections is critical. It
allows the popular will to be accurately reflected, which,
in turn, reinforces the legitimacy of democratic
institutions.
New technologies have largely helped to eliminate the age
old problems with fraud in the electoral process in many
parts of the world. We still have problems with the
credibility of our electoral register and the voting
process.
My party went to the Supreme Court to contest the results of
the 2012 elections and, even though the Court in the end
gave a 5-4 split decision against us, there have been a lot
of unintended consequences for the country. One was that,
for the first time in our country’s history, judicial
proceedings were televised to the public and this has helped
to demystify the justice system to the ordinary people,
which can only strengthen freedom and democracy. The
proceedings also revealed the imperfections of our electoral
system and led even the majority on the Court to call for
reform.
I am proud to say that, today, Ghana ranks high in the
freedom of the press league and the NPP can claim that we
led that fight. When our party came into government in 2001,
we quickly repealed the Criminal Libel Law which had
inhibited the press for years from doing its work as a
public watchdog. My modest self had the honour, as Attorney
General, of piloting the passage of the repeal through our
Parliament.
The opening of the airwaves to private enterprise has
improved governance in general and led to a feeling of
inclusiveness among the population.
Mass poverty remains the biggest problem that we have as a
nation and it poses the most serious challenge to freedom
and democracy. This is what gives my party the strong desire
to work to win power at the next elections in December 2016
to continue the work we did to critical acclaim between 2001
and 2008. We believe that the example of Korea, which began
life as an independent nation at the same time and in the
same shape as our own, is one we can effectively emulate in
Ghana to spearhead the rapid transformation and
modernisation of our economy and society, and, thereby,
raise rapidly the living standards of our people.
Finally, a lot of work needs to be done to ensure that the
operation of the regional and continental organisations – in
the case of Africa, such as ECOWAS and the AU – which
increasingly dominate many areas of our lives, is imbued
with the democratic ideals and values that binds us together
in the IDU, so that freedom and democracy can be
strengthened to meet the new challenges of our times.
Thank you for this opportunity for the Ghanaian delegation.
New Patriotic Party
Headquarters, Private Mail
Bag, Accra-North, Ghana
Tel: +233 0302 264329/ 264288 Fax: +233 0302 229 048
Email: nppdcom@gmail.com Website: www.newpatrioticparty.org
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