A former presidential aspirant of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Sylvester Mensah, has called for a comprehensive review of the party’s constitution to limit the term of office of party executives.
According to the former Chief Executive of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), the term of office should be defined to be consistent with democratic tenets and best practices to allow for freshness, inclusiveness of the younger generation and dynamism in the drive for new membership.
Mr. Mensah popularly referred to as Sly, made the call in a speech he delivered at the Cadres Day celebration and inauguration of the Ashanti Regional young cadres of the United Cadres Front (UCF) in Kumasi.
The former MP for La Dade-Kotopon Constituency argued that the tendency of executives to extend their mandate in the same position beyond 20 years is unproductive and worrying.
“A maximum limit of 3 terms should be useful and reasonable for the purpose of mentoring and mobilizing new members.
“It would remain a dent on the conscience of the present leadership of the party if cadres, the precursors to the NDC, are not captured as an integral organ of the party, even though there are several influential cadres in the executive structure of the party,” he said.
The role of the youth, he said, in any political party, either as foot soldiers, or front-line executives and the unique insights and expectations they bring on-board cannot be denied.
He warned that when the political system fails to recognise, appreciate, and provide the basic needs of the youth they often galvanise themselves to respond in ways that may not always be within desirable expectations.
Mr. Mensah stressed that like the youth of today, cadres with proper training can serve as the engine room of ideas and concepts that would inform party policy and direction for progress and development.
He called for a programme of ideological training and equipping of the youth to incubate ideas through the lenses of social democracy across the party’s ranks and promote the party’s vision and purpose for excellence in governance.
Mr Mensah expressed his love and respect for the party’s found Chairman J.J. Rawlings and all cadres who worked for both country and party.
He noted that it is time for the UCF to work with all the new generation of NDC youth to help instil the principles of “Probity, Accountability, Transparency and Patriotism and the Promotion of social justice”, which won the hearts of many Ghanaians and made the party admirable beyond the borders of Ghana.
The NDC, Mr Mensah noted, has arrived at a destination where inclusiveness, consensus building, and progressive compromises have become the only way to ‘snatch the brand from the burning’.
He indicated that the NDC must survive and grow because if it fails to nurture young party cadres, it would have failed in its historical duty of immortalizing the Ideals and principles that constitute the foundations of the political tradition.
