The Executive Director of the Center for Policy Research [CPR], Dr. Michael Whyte Kpessa is advocating for an amendment in the Constitution to allow for the creation of a seat in Parliament for the runner up in the country’s presidential elections. The move, according to him, has the potential of making the losing candidate and his supporters feel a part of the governance process. Speaking about the proposal on Multi TV’s current affairs programme, PM EXPRESS, Dr. Kpessa said he was optimistic the proposal could forestall any possible post electoral violence as elections in Ghana are often held along ethnic lines. “What we are proposing is a 'loser gets some' as a mechanism for political inclusion, instead of the 'winner takes all' since one of the effective ways of building political inclusion is through the electoral system”, he explained. Even though Dr. Kpessa’s proposal has been submitted to the Constitution Review Commission [CRC], he said carrying out the review process at this time is pointless. According to him, a review of the 19-year-old constitution at this stage is not necessary since the country has not faced any constitutional crisis which would require the setting up of a bureaucratic structure to even carry out such an exercise. “We would have found our own way of amending it with cases being taken to court and interpretations being given it. The magnitude of the process should not have begun in the first place” he said. According to him, even if the state wanted to review the 1992 Constitution, state institutions in charge of policy implementation should have been tasked to do so instead of setting up a temporary bureaucratic structure like the CRC. But Events and Media Manager for the CRC, Papa Kow Acquaye disagreed with D. Kpessa’s point about allowing other policy implementing state institutions to take up the job being done by the CRC. He argued that the National Commission on Civic Education for instance has its own challenges which will not make it possible for them to have carried out the exercise as effectively as the Commission has done. But Dr. Kpessa dismissed Mr. Acquaye’s argument that “if the Commission thinks that educating Ghanaians is their strongest point, it is a very weak argument. In as much as the educational process through the participatory approach is commendable, NCCE could have played that part by being adequately resourced”. Dr. Kpessa raised concerns about the indemnity clauses in the constitution and questioned if Ghana was ready for a referendum before 2012. “Are we likely to organize a referendum before 2012 if any of the entrenched positions come up for amendment? If the Commission in its draft policy says we should amend any of the entrenched provisions and we couldn’t do it before 2012 elections, the chances are that we might not be able to do it again” he stressed. Set up in January 2010, the Constitution Review Commission is wrapping up its work after holding countrywide consultations in all the 170 districts, 47 special consultations with various interest groups and high level consultations as well as Diaspora consultations in 5 African and 7 European countries. The Commission has so far received some 84,000 submissions from the public and according to Papa Kow Acquaye, the Commission will soon come out with its report. The report, he noted, will be in two forms – a draft bill which is expected to cover what the Commission feels must change in the constitution based on its analyses of the data collated and there will also be a supplementary report which will encompass the sociological quasi-legal matters raised by the public such as death penalty, tenure of the president, indemnity clause and ex-gratia for top public servants and MPs among others. The Commission is expected to hand over its report to the President by December 31 2011. Story by Adwoa Dansowaa Awuku/Multi TV