Prof H. Kwasi Prempeh, Chairman of the Constitution Review Committee, has urged Ghana’s political class to put national interest ahead of partisan considerations.

He warned that the country risks squandering a rare opportunity to undertake meaningful constitutional reforms if politics takes precedence over patriotism.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express on Monday, Prof Prempeh stressed that constitutional reforms are fundamentally different from day-to-day political contests because they shape the country’s future for generations.

“One would expect that our constitution revision process should rise above the kinds of habits that we have gotten used to in our everyday politics,” he said.

He explained that constitutions are “forward-looking,” lasting “at least a generation” and setting “the foundational rules of the game for how the country is to be governed, how we recruit our national political leadership, how we exit them, how we distribute power.”

According to him, those principles extend beyond governments, political parties and individual leaders.

“So I’m expecting, I’m hoping that the political class, who for better or worse are the gatekeepers in this process… will come to this with a certain sense of patriotic obligation, not deference to party, because this is going to last beyond any party’s tenure, any president’s tenure,” he said.

Prof Prempeh said politicians should assess every proposed reform from the perspective of ordinary citizens and future generations rather than from the perspective of immediate political advantage.

“You should look at it as: Look, if I were out of government, if I were not a politician, if when I am retired from politics and back in civic life, as an ordinary citizen, beyond my lifespan, my children and my children’s children… Am I creating a state, a society, a polity they would be happy to live?”

He cautioned that reducing the review process to partisan competition would undermine its purpose.

“But if you see it as just a zero-sum game… for one incumbent party to get their preferences vis-à-vis the rival party, then I think we have lost an opportunity to do some real game-changing reforms.”

While acknowledging that politics will inevitably influence the process, Prof Prempeh said the solution lies in deeper public engagement rather than rushing decisions.

“This is why I think it’s important for the deliberative content of this process to be very high, so that rather than rush things and go quickly to cast a vote, let us debate and argue it, and let the public be part of that debate.”

He said such participation is essential because the country is “reforming our state, the republic, and how it’s governed.”

On concerns about the one-year timeline for the review, Prof Prempeh admitted valuable time had already been lost since January and suggested government positions could have been submitted earlier through the consultative process alongside those of other stakeholders.

Although he understands the desire to align a possible referendum with the local government elections to improve voter turnout, he maintained that sufficient room must still be created for extensive public deliberation.

He acknowledged that greater consultation could slow the process but argued that this is the nature of constitutional democracy.

“That’s what makes constitutions and constitution-making and democracy slower than the alternative… you slow it so that you hopefully improve the outcome, the legitimacy of the outcome.”

He added that competing political positions would have to be carefully weighed, asking: “What does it mean if the other side comes and says, ‘This is also our position.’ Who weighs them? Who balances? How do we filter that into this process?”