Prof John Gatsi Writes: Presidential Debates – Tradition or “Takashi” 

Presidential debate is a tradition developed in some democracies. It is not a mandatory exercise in our type of democracy. Respecting and engaging with the people to discuss policies and ways to resolve current challenges of the economy is mandatory.

Presidential debates are serious engagements to provide policy options. Therefore, the “takashi” call for debates should be ignored.

In recent developments in the United States of America, presidential debates revealed soundness of mind and physical strength but did not provide a complete assessment of a candidate.

The first presidential debate took place in the United States in 1960 between J F. Kennedy and Nixon. The debates were organized in four encounters with Kennedy winning the first and Nixon the second.

The fact is, it is a tradition developed as part of democracy and elections to give voters the opportunity to assess the policies of the candidates in some countries. It is therefore not rooted in law and the frequency of acceptance always depends on the candidates.

Questions asked during the debates attract answers for informed electoral decisions by voters. The recent debates in the United Kingdom allowed additional questions from the public. In Ghana, political communications come from campaign platforms by the presidential candidates carried through the media and are discussed within the public domain.

A few weeks ago former President John Mahama took political interaction with the people to a higher notch by engaging the media who asked him different questions bordering on leadership, foreign policy, agriculture, the economy, industrialization, regionalization, the 24-hour economy, education, health, trade, sanitation, corruption, youth development, employment, and women and children among others.

The 2024 election to some people doesn’t need debates and some are in favour of it. What John Mahama should do is to repeat the Accra engagement with Journalists to answer questions in the regions to deepen engagement with the people.

One challenge with the Ghanaian environment is that we are still developing structures of consistency of honesty and independence of institutions that organize these debates. IEA, Imani, GBC, and many more have intentions to organize one.

We listen to and watch what each of the organizations do and we do not have a truly credible, independent presidential debate Institute yet whether public or private.

For the 2024 presidential election, the advice is that presidential candidates should do the John Mahama type of engagement with the key stakeholders such as traders, market women, teachers, health workers, students, traditional leaders, clergy, exporters and importers, shippers, farmers, youths, retirees, fishermen, miners etc and avail themselves to questions and answer engagements.

If you do not debate but can provide answers to all sets of questions like John Mahama did with Journalists recently that will provide real engagement.