The Truth Squad, a pressure group within the Progressive People�s Party (PPP), has called on Ghanaians to break the two-party dominance in the country by voting massively for the PPP in the December elections.
It urged the Ghanaian electorate to take a cue from their counterparts in Benin, Zambia and Senegal, who elected into office third political forces in recent general elections in their respective countries.
Addressing a news conference in Accra on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Truth Squad, Alister Nelson, said if the electorate in Benin, Zambia and Senegal could change the duo-political dominance in their countries, the Ghanaian electorate could also do likewise.
�This is the time to look beyond our partisan interests and vote for a pragmatist with the knowledge and understanding of the country�s problems�, he noted, adding that the PPP flag bearer, Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, was the best bet for the presidency.
In March 2006, President Thomas Yayi Boni, then an independent candidate, won the first round of that country�s presidential election, polling 32 per cent of the votes, while his nearest challenger, Adrien Houngb�dji of the Party for Democratic Renewal polled 25 per cent, both ahead of 24 other candidates.
Subsequently in the same month, a runoff was held between Boni and Houngb�dji with the former obtaining almost 75 per cent of the vote to be elected as the President of Benin.
In Zambia, President Michael Sata broke the two-party dominance in that country when he won the presidential election in September 2011 on the ticket of an infant political party, the Patriotic Front, ahead of the two major political parties � the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), which had been in power for two decades, and the opposition United National Independence Party (UNIP).
Just last February in Senegal, Macky Sall rode on the back of a new political party - the Alliance for the Republic (APR-Yakaar) � to win the presidential election in that country, ahead of the ruling Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS), which featured the incumbent President Abdoulaye Wade, and the Senegalese Socialist Party, which had ruled for 40 years uninterrupted.
Pointing to those examples, Mr Nelson said it was the turn of Ghana to break the dominance of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Ghanaian politics over the past 20 years.
The news conference, according to the PPP Truth Squad, was to present the truth to Ghanaians on various national issues, as it launched a scathing attack on the ruling NDC�s �Better Ghana Agenda�, describing it as a legacy of broken promises.
�This so-called �Better Ghana Agenda� is a fiasco to earn another term. The people cannot wait four more years under a travel happy, thank you touring administration; a government made up of failed promises, hypocrisy, administrative incompetence, corruption and economic hardship which stares most Ghanaians squarely in the face�, Mr Nelson fired at the ruling NDC.
He said the youth wanted jobs, not pretentious �ahobrase politics�, adding that Ghanaians needed to feel prosperity, not statistics about the country�s supposed high growth rate.
Mr Nelson presented a tall list of what he described as broken promises by the ruling NDC for which reason it ought to be booted out of office in December.
The listed broken promises included the non-passage of the Right to Information Bill, poor management of the school feeding programme with children being allegedly fed with insect-infected food and many suppliers not being paid, failure to redeem the promise of one-time premium payment under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), failure to reduce fuel prices drastically, failure to provide abundant premix fuel at low cost and failure to redeem the promise of building landing bays for fishing communities.
Others were the failure to implement the national identification system, lack of jobs leading to the formation of the Unemployed Graduates Association, failure to fulfil the promise to allocate 30 per cent of all public offices to women and failure to make Accra clean, as filth engulfs the national capital.
�We are tired of hearing empty promises that have no basis to be made, and surely, we are tired of President John Mahama�, Mr Nelson submitted.
�We need �Mr Fix It� if we are to see the end of our problems�. It is clear the obvious choice in 2012 is the candidate who has the solutions and practical competences and who can fix our problems; the obvious choice is the PPP and Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom�, he added.
The Director of Communications of the PPP, Mr Richmond Keelson, said travelling around the length and breadth of the country, �there is no Better Ghana anywhere�.
He described as �electoral gimmick�, development initiatives proposed by the NDC and the NPP for Northern Ghana, contending that the solution to the development challenges of the north, as espoused by the PPP, was to first provide good roads to open up the area for investments.
He said that would create more jobs for the people and arrest the north-south migration of the youth.
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