{"id":6658,"date":"2019-12-04T12:23:54","date_gmt":"2019-12-04T12:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/ghana\/?p=6658"},"modified":"2019-12-04T12:23:54","modified_gmt":"2019-12-04T12:23:54","slug":"former-president-mahama-breaks-silence-on-referendum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/former-president-mahama-breaks-silence-on-referendum","title":{"rendered":"Former president Mahama breaks silence on referendum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former President John Mahama has denied statements by his successor that, they reached a consensus at a meeting on the abortive referendum.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prior to\u00a0announcing the withdrawal of the contentious referendum in a national broadcast on Sunday night, President Nana Akufo-Addo said he had believed that a meeting he had with the three former presidents -John Rawlings, John Kufuor and John Mahama- on April 18, 2017, at which the referendum was discussed, ended with a general agreement that political parties be allowed to participate in local assembly elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came away from that meeting with the view that there was consensus amongst us that the time had come for political parties to participate openly in district assembly elections and local governance,\u201d the President indicated.<\/p>\n

But Mr\u00a0Mahama told JoyNews\u2019 Kwesi Parker-Wilson in an exclusive interview after a meeting with the Islamic Federation Council in Accra Tuesday, that indeed the meeting took place to look at three key\u00a0issues.<\/p>\n

He said they discussed the welfare of former presidents, the creation of new regions as well as the election of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs).<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0there was no agreement that the political parties should be allowed to participate in the election of MMDCEs, he revealed.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Kufuor was for political party participation in the election of MMDCEs [but]\u2026I took the stance of the Fiadjoe Committee that we should still keep political parties out, that we can achieve the election of our DCEs without political party participation.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Rawlings did not express any firm stand but on that particular matter, there was no consensus\u00a0even though we discussed it, there was consultation [but] there was no consensus,\u201d the former president explained.<\/p>\n

Mr Mahama said he maintained his position that the MMDCEs be elected as recommended\u00a0by the Prof. Albert Committee.<\/p>\n

The committee proposed that the president nominates five people for the position of\u00a0MMDCE for a particular assembly to the Public Services Commission, where the list will further be pruned to three before they are presented to the public for election.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0referendum had sought\u00a0to amend Article 243(1) and Article 55(3)\u00a0of the 1992 Constitution\u00a0to enable MMDCEs\u00a0and unit committee members to be elected along\u00a0political party lines.<\/p>\n

However, the question of whether to allow political party participation at the local government level\u00a0dominated major discussions with the leading opposition party,\u00a0National Democratic Congress (NDC) campaigning for a \u2018No Vote\u2019.<\/p>\n

President Akufo-Addo threw a jab at the NDC describing them as \u201chypocrites\u201d who, after participating in stakeholder engagements and giving their\u00a0consent for the exercise to be held,\u00a0only made a last-minute u-turn\u00a0to campaign for a \u2018No vote\u2019.<\/p>\n

But Mr Mahama\u00a0described the President\u2019s comment as\u00a0\u201cunfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was unfortunate for him to have said that it was hypocrisy on the side of the NDC, that was wrong. It was not only the NDC that rejected, but the Catholic Bishops also said \u2018no\u2019 the National House of Chiefs said \u2018no\u2019 and these are no means institutions in Ghana. And so he cannot accuse people of hypocrisy just because they hold a different viewpoint from he had intended.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition,\u00a0the impression had been created that the referendum was about the election of MMDCEs which it isn\u2019t. The election MMDCEs is in the bosom of Parliament.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf our parliamentarians agree that DCEs should be elected they can be elected. It\u2019s just that we don\u2019t want political parties bringing the polarisation that we have at the national level into our local government system,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former President John Mahama has denied statements by his successor that, they reached a consensus at a meeting on the abortive referendum. Prior to\u00a0announcing the withdrawal of the contentious referendum in a national broadcast on Sunday night, President Nana Akufo-Addo said he had believed that a meeting he had with the three former presidents -John […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":6659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[4354,1906,4356,4355],"class_list":["post-6658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-abortive-referendum","tag-former-president-john-mahama","tag-john-kufuor","tag-presidents-john-rawlings"],"yoast_head":"\nFormer president Mahama breaks silence on referendum - Ghana<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former President John Mahama has denied statements by his successor that, they reached a consensus at a meeting on the abortive referendum.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/former-president-mahama-breaks-silence-on-referendum\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Former president Mahama breaks silence on referendum\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former President John Mahama has denied statements by his successor that, they reached a consensus at a meeting on the abortive referendum.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/former-president-mahama-breaks-silence-on-referendum\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Ghana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-12-04T12:23:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/ghana\/sites\/18\/2019\/12\/Mahama-750x375-610x375-3.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"610\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"375\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"francis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"francis\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/former-president-mahama-breaks-silence-on-referendum#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/former-president-mahama-breaks-silence-on-referendum\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"francis\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/#\/schema\/person\/3687592f7713dc6c826cf5bbd0e55bca\"},\"headline\":\"Former president Mahama breaks silence on referendum\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-12-04T12:23:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/former-president-mahama-breaks-silence-on-referendum\"},\"wordCount\":595,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/former-president-mahama-breaks-silence-on-referendum#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/ghana\/sites\/18\/2019\/12\/Mahama-750x375-610x375-3.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"abortive referendum\",\"Former President John Mahama\",\"John Kufuor\",\"presidents -John Rawlings\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/former-president-mahama-breaks-silence-on-referendum#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/former-president-mahama-breaks-silence-on-referendum\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/former-president-mahama-breaks-silence-on-referendum\",\"name\":\"Former president Mahama breaks silence on referendum - 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