The Alliance for Revolutionary Change says its “real challenge” in the upcoming December general elections “is not getting” the youth “to vote for us” but rather, getting them to shed their apathy.

In an interview with Kwame Dwomoh-Agyemang on Class91.3FM’s morning show on Wednesday, 24 April 2024, Dr Abu Sakara Foster, a prominent member of the coalition, said their uphill task is “getting them [young people] to vote because they are not bothered”.

The agricultural economist said when “you see such a big chunk of the population who are not bothered because they think the outcome is the same, then you have to give them an alternative and that is what we’re doing in the ARC”.

The ARC is made up of 10 different non-aligned, non-political groups that have coalesced to back the presidential ambition of independent candidate Alan Kyerematen, who resigned from the governing party a few months back.

Responding to suggestions that the coalition may be wasting its time and resources duo to the entrench New Patriotic Party-National Democratic Congress duopoly, Dr Sakara Foster said: “It is a transition”, adding: “Democracies are not static, they evolve; and when we look at the figures, we are convinced that this time round, the population is ready for a change”. 

“Maybe”, he pointed out, “the older population are OK where they are but the younger population are ready for a change and they don’t have that belief in NDC and NPP”. 

“In fact”, he asserted, “most of them, given the chance will not even vote; they are not bothered. They say, ‘What’s the point of going to vote?’”

Regarding the coalition’s ideology, Dr Sakara Foster said: “We’re saying the ideology that matters is to put the nation first and to make all Ghanaians keepers of each other so that we travel a common path that will reset the economy of this country to favour better standards of living for the average person and we can achieve that together”. 

About whether Mr Kyerematen could be delinked from the status quo, since he has been with the NPP for decades until a few months ago, Dr Sakara Foster said: “The first thing is that politics is dynamic. People change their minds, especially when they see that the fundamental principles that they think bind them to a particular political organisation, those principles are no longer adhered to, if I believe that development in freedom is what binds me together to my party people and then all of a sudden I perceive our own little elections in our party, we don’t have the freedom, then how can I give freedom in governance?”

“So, there’re some points of fundamental differences in principle that cause departure from political parties, and I want to make this clear to my fellow Ghanaians: in politics and democracy as it is practised everywhere, if people work according to principles, their politics is according to principle and conviction, they resign when something goes very bad. Isn’t it? They leave parties when something goes very bad, isn’t it? They serve in other governments that they think is more in tune with their principles and convictions. So, why do you think that these things are good somewhere but they not good here? So, there’s a contradiction in the way we are thinking about our politics because we’re practising the politics of convenience, we’re not practising a politics of conviction”, he explained.

“So, we’re expecting our politicians to always behave in a convenient way. If they always behave in a convenient way, they’ll also give you a convenient government which gives you the kind of issues that you have with them that you’re complaining about”, Dr Sakara Foster noted.

He argued that there was nothing wrong with Mr Kyerematen’s decision to leave the NPP.

“If he has come out of the NPP, it is not a crime. If his convictions are that, ‘what I can do for Ghanaians outside of my party is more than what I can do for them in my party, because my party no longer reflects the principles and ideals that I joined them for’, then it’s not a big crime”. 

He said: “In politics, that is what it is, just that in our small little village here, we see it as almost tribal politics; if I belong to this political party, I belong to this tribe and, therefore, I cannot leave them. It’s a sacrilege, it’s like a religion”. 

Secondly, he added, “at the end of the day, if we see that somebody has some capacity to deliver and has innate competence to deliver, why can’t we use that person? This is what has stopped us from using people from opposing parties. If we are talking about Alliance for Revolutionary Change, we should be revolutionary in a change. We should change the mind-set of Ghanaians in our approach to politics and that’s what we are doing”.