I have been thinking about our transition from military rule to our current dispensation and the gains chalked so far, over the period vis-a-vis where we could have been if we indeed had chosen not to copy and paste everything about western styled democracy by being slightly different in our system and style of governance.

After all democracy is not a one size fits all concept and justifiably so when the dynamics between the west and Africa are not the same.

What do I mean? Everything about our current democratic practice is alright in my humble view, except the tenure of office of our presidents.

The current two term four years tenure which is modeled from western democracies is not suitable for us as a country and the continent if we are to take the appropriate and necessary but, all be it radical decisions to transform our economies into real and sustainable middle and upper incomes economies capable of ensuring growth, create employment, ensure stability in prices and exchange rates.

Empirical evidence abound to suggest that to transform an economy like that of Ghana and for that matter many African countries, painful and radical short term decisions with the needed long term benefits or effects must be taken.

A critical assessment of decisions taken by both past and current governments since the inception of the 1992 constitution which ushered in the forth republic of Ghana reveals, a  rather disturbing trend of suboptimal decisions largely skewed towards political feasibility at the expense of genuinely transforming the  Ghanaian economy.

The evidence is that if for purpose of this piece we are to limit ourselves as a case study, to the two term tenures of former President Jerry John Rawlings and John Agyekum Kuffour which is a term less than two decades, were to be characterized by transformational policies and decisions, Ghana would have made significant and monumental progress in terms of development than what is currently the case. I refrain from giving policy examples with the view of depoliticizing this piece.

I now want to demonstrate in the preceding paragraphs the non suitability of the two term four years tenure of office for our presidents.

First and foremost the two term four years tenures of office does not afford or guarantee our presidents the stability in tenure to be able to take those radical decisions necessary to transform the country. America and other developed countries can afford to use that because they are not faced with the serious infrastructure, institutional and systematic problems that confront us.

Recently at an economic dialogue organized by CITI FM here in Accra, the minority spokesman on finance in view of the failure by the Ghana Revenue Authority to substantially increase government revenue to match its expenditure, diagnosed our current budget deficit by suggesting radical expenditure cuts which includes among others a retrenchment of the size of both public and civil servants in the country.

 Unfortunately however, such prescriptions cannot be implemented not because they do not make economic sense but rather, it would be politically suicidal to implement due to the closeness of the president tenure to the next elections.

Come to think of it, if the president had seven years to the next elections what would have prevented him from implementing those prescriptions if indeed and as it appears in our current circumstance to be the best way out?

The current arrangement if allowed to stay will not only pose a serious threat to a sustainable economic transformation of the Ghanaian economy but more importantly the long term sustainability of our democracy as well, because if democracy fails to deliver the desired outcomes any system of governance could as well be practiced.

An assessment of the polarized nature of our country equally point accusing fingers to the short two term four years tenure of office for our presidents. I guess former president John Agyekum Kuffour foresaw this as one of his reasons when he suggested at the tail end of his presidency the need to extend the tenure of office of the president to say five years per term according to him.

I am very optimistic in my mind that if we have a much longer and perhaps a one term tenure of office for our presidents, the current trend which feeds into the polarization where people dabble in politics as a full time job would be a thing of the past thereby fostering national cohesion for equitable development.

If a party is going to be in opposition for say eight years continuously, activist of the party would be left with no other option than to deploy their talents and energies into productive engagements instead of dabble in politics since it will prove to be unsustainable.

A careful study of most of the bad fiscal policy decisions that have in the past and presently undermined our quest to progress development wise reveal, most of them were taken during election years. A thorough review of the performance of the Ghanaian economy since the coming into being of the 1992 constitution indicates a decline or worsening economic performance during and after elections.

This cyclical ‘economic cancer’ can be avoided and the nation sparred of the tension and cost of having to run elections every four years when we could have chosen to run our elections every eight years as I intend to posit.

If as a country we decide to do a one term eight years tenure for our presidents a lot of savings would be made in terms of huge resources expended in organizing elections in this country, because we would have succeeded in organizing one election in every eight years instead  two within the same period.

For instance the 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections costs Ghana an amount of Two Hundred and Eight Six million, Two Hundred and Eighty Eight Thousand and Twenty Five Pesewas (GHC286, 288.025) cedis my position is that if we were conducting elections every eight years we would have made savings of not spending a much higher amount than that of the 2012 to organize elections in 2016.

Let’s assume for a moment that the cost of a six  classrooms block is three hundred thousand cedis (GHC300, 000.00), assume further that all things being equal the cost of having to run the 2016 elections would not change relative to that of 2012 and same for the cost of constructing the six class room block and that elections would not be runned in 2016 but rather 2020 with a policy to devote the savings to the construction of class room blocks, the country would have constructed Nine Hundred and Fifty Four (954) six class room blocks across the country in 2016 alone.

The thrust of this piece is to draw attention to aspects of our democratic practice which is quietly suffocating the nation for the required public debate in order to engender and influence a deliberate and conscious effort at reforming it to allow the nation the required breathing space to progressively grow on a sustainable basis.

I conclude by recommending a one term eight years tenure of office for our presidents as the surest way to cure the cyclical ‘economic cancer’ described earlier and also to free resources for critical national development and above all free the nation of the needless but excessive polarization. After all, 2*4 = 8 and 1*8 = 8 either, except that with the same logical outcomes the later would better serve our interest as a country and must thus influence our policy choice and preference.