Private legal practitioner Martin Kpebu has proposed an amendment to Ghana’s Constitution to allow the political party that wins a presidential election to replace its president within the four-year term if the party believes the person is not performing.
Kpebu said Ghana should consider adopting an aspect of the parliamentary system that allows political parties to change their leaders without necessarily waiting for another general election.
Speaking on TV3 in an interview with Alfred Ocansey, he argued that the current constitutional arrangements make it difficult to remove a president who is underperforming before the end of the four-year mandate.
He proposed that the party that brought the president to power should be allowed to recall the person and nominate a replacement, while retaining the presidential electoral system.
“We should rather be amending the Constitution to make it easy for a party that has won power to be able to recall the president,” he said.
Kpebu explained that such a change could allow a party to replace a president within the same four-year period rather than waiting until the next election.
“If the one who won the general election is not doing well, his party should be able to recall him and then bring in a new person,” he said.
He argued that Ghana’s system already combines elements of presidential and parliamentary governance, making it possible to consider borrowing from the parliamentary model.
Kpebu added that holding another general election before the end of a presidential term would impose additional financial costs on the country.
