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The African Center for Parliamentary Affairs is anticipating exciting times in Parliament in 2017 if majority of the names some have described as “the new Ghanaian,” make it into the House.

The Center said the quality of persons gearing up for Parliamentary roles on the ticket of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) will help deepen the country’s democracy. 

A number prominent Ghanaians have declared their intentions to run for Parliamentary seats in the 2016 election including lead council in the election petition Philip Addison, former Joy FM presenter, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, a leading member of OccupyGhana, George Andah and former Chief Executive Officer of Accra Hearts of Oak and King Faisal Football Club, Vincent Odotie.

The Executive Director at the African Center for Parliamentary Affairs, Dr. Rashid Dramani on the Citi Breakfast Show stated that the caliber persons who have declared their intentions will make Ghana’s politics interesting if they get elected.

He said: “This is very exciting times for our democracy. I am very happy to hear all the names that are coming up.”

Dr. Dramani observed that Ghana has some very serious structural issues when addressed will make governance more effective.

He however admitted that although sometimes, “one or two people cannot make very much a difference, if the system is broken already,” the professionals who are vying to be MPs now are “very qualified” and change will definitely come although slowly.

“I believe that slowly, if we have a lot of such people, we are going to have a critical mass and when we have a critical mass, that is when we will begin to see some difference.”

Dr. Dramani added that the new entrants will easily learn how Parliament operates to enable them contribute meaningfully.

He remarked that “somebody like Philip Addison – a qualified lawyer and so on; he might not be someone who would know everything about the workings of Parliament. Bills can come before them and he will be sitting in that committee with a background in law but he might not have background in economics or in accounting but people like that are trainable.”

“People like that are very quick to pick up on some of these issues and I believe that we are going to see some difference in our politics.”