‘This cycle is not going to be broken any soon’ – Osae-Kwapong on partisan appointments

CDD-Ghana Fellow, Dr John Osae-Kwapong, has warned that partisan appointments to independent constitutional bodies will persist unless meaningful institutional reforms break the cycle. Speaking on Joy News’ PM Express on Tuesday, he said both the NDC and NPP had questioned such appointments. Yet the practice continued as power changed hands.

“Both parties – NDC and NPP – have had opportunities to express a view about openly partisan persons being appointed to certain institutions, but we see this cycle being repeated, through the rotation and election turnovers.” His comments follow the swearing-in of two new Electoral Commission deputy chairpersons, Dr Joseph Kwaku Asamoah and Emelia Afi Agbenyo, on Monday, October 12. President John Mahama charged them with upholding impartiality and strengthening public confidence. The appointments followed Dr Bossman Eric Asare’s resignation and Samuel Tettey’s retirement.

For Dr Osae-Kwapong, the political response to the appointments points to a deeper institutional problem. He recounted a conversation with a partisan friend about the lesson political actors were drawing from the controversy. “Her response to me was that this tells us that whenever we have the chance, we should pack independent Constitutional bodies with partisans,” he said.

Dr Osae-Kwapong warned that this thinking would sustain the practice without reforms to check partisan appointments. Asked whether the latest development damaged the EC’s credibility, he said it did little to rebuild confidence. “So for an institution that is already struggling in the eyes of the public, you mentioned the Afrobarometer on the question of trust.” “I feel like this doesn’t help to restore that kind of trust, that the institution itself really needs to build back up.” Dr Osae-Kwapong also raised a distinction between appointees whose political sympathies remain private and those whose affiliations are publicly known.

“But again, the one question I’ve been reflecting on is: you could have a privately partisan person being appointed to the EC,” he said. His concern was the discomfort surrounding publicly partisan figures entering an independent institution while it was struggling to secure public confidence. CDD-Ghana Fellow Dr John Osae-Kwapong says partisan appointments to independent constitutional bodies will persist unless meaningful institutional reforms break the pattern.

They fill vacancies left by Dr Bossman Eric Asare and Samuel Tettey. Mahama charged them with upholding impartiality and prioritising the national interest. Dr Osae-Kwapong illustrated his concern with an exchange he had with a partisan friend earlier that day.