Mr. Andrew Awuni, Executive Director of the Center for Freedom and Accuracy, has observed that until the state was left to function without allegiance to any political party, the country's democracy was not complete.
"Democracy is not all about elections. It is a way of governance based on tolerance, transparency, equity and justice, and also grounded on a culture of truth and honesty."
Mr. Awuni said this on Wednesday in Accra, at the Third Freedom Power Lecture by the centre in Accra.
The lecture was under the topic, "Assessing Ghana's Democracy: What is Right, What is Wrong and the Future."
He said it was laudable that "we have conducted our elections relatively well so far, without going to war as others have done."
Mr. Awuni said it was however unfortunate that after every election, the people ended up losing the state and its support to the new party that had won political power.
"You either have to join the new conquerors to be protected by the state or stay out and suffer."
He said it was unfortunate that the mentality of most Ghanaians and politicians was that "when a political party gets the mandate from the people, this mandate is used to control state apparatus and institutions and these institutions and apparatus are used to suppress opponents and tilt everything towards the electoral fortunes of the ruling party."
Mr. Awuni said the threat about this situation was that if a shameless group of people, under the guise of a political party, got the mandate of the people through an election, "they could easily and shamelessly return this country to a dictatorship".
He said besides the ability to have successful elections, there was the need to strengthen our democracy by ensuring that the state was strong enough to serve as a check on any political party that found itself in power at any time.
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