With the party primaries of the NDC coming off on November 21, one cannot help but notice the several posters, banners and billboards bearing the faces and slogans of men and women hoping to get into or remain in parliament. There are several competitive match ups in the primaries that call for this level of campaigning however, the most visible campaign belongs to the contestant in the easiest primary race Continue reading
Author: Jerome Kuseh
On Jeremy Corbyn, Ghana and a new kind of Politics
Jeremy Corbyn, MP. PHOTO: theguardian.com
Veteran Labour MP for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn, has won the leadership election of the Labour Party in one of the most surprising electoral races in history. Earlier on in the race he was considered the least likely to win the election but the support of the unions and his opposition to a welfare bill that the rest of Labour abstained from helped Corbyn to surge Continue reading
The Beauty of a Changed Mind (Personal)
If every person had to do what was right, the odds are that each person would do things differently from the other. And that is understandable. Morality is a puzzle with many scattered components that humans must fit together into a neat pattern while blindfolded. Even worse, Continue reading
If Superheroes could vote, who would they vote for?
Superhero movies and cartoons have mostly been the way in which I got to know about superheroes growing up. Like most children, I saw superheroes as representatives of good fighting the evil that attempts to destroy the earth and the innocent helpless humans.
Becoming interested in politics made me realise that many of these superheroes had backgrounds or ideologies which shaped their worldview and determined who they took on. In this post I briefly analyse the backgrounds and ideals of five superheroes Continue reading
Is the Ghanaian Left Missing out on Socially Liberal Voters?
In many political environments around the world the political parties on the Left are not only progressive in economic policies but also progressive in social issues. However, from my review of policy and ideological positions of political parties in Ghana I realised that only one party in the country, the GCPP, had sought to appeal to social liberals in its party platform. The rest of the political parties Continue reading
Is Partisanship a Good or Bad Force in Ghana Politics?
Partisanship is usually listed among the issues derailing Ghana’s march to development. And in truth, it is sometimes amusing to see how minds can change on issues depending on the position of a political party on it. This type of alignment of public opinion to the views of political parties is more remarkable because of the ideological flipflopping of the two major political parties.
It appears then that rather than ideology Continue reading
Ethnicity and Kwame Nkrumah
Jerome Kuseh
Among the things Kwame Nkrumah is celebrated for today was his commitment to building a national identity that transcended the ethnic identities that made up Ghana. Nkrumah, an Nzema from the Western Region was first elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1951 as the representative of Accra Central.
In his book Dark Days in Ghana written in exile in Guinea after the coup that removed him from office in 1966
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A Guide to the Ideologies of Political Parties in Ghana
A political party’s ideology guides its economic, social, governance, legal and foreign policies. One of the most vivid methods by which an ideology can be visualised is by the description of an ideal world as envisioned by the adherents of that ideology. For example, if your ideal world is one in which everything is owned by everyone (no privately-held property) and shared according to need, you are a Continue reading
Yes, Ta-Nehisi Coates is an Intellectual
Just this morning, I was directed by a friend to a rant by Will Antonin on Twitter in response to a piece written by Ta-Nehisi Coates in 2012. In it Ta-Nehisi admits not knowing Augustine and having not read Nietzsche, Twain, Salinger, Hemingway, Cervantes, Heller and a few others. He referred to “pitfalls in his education” and then revealed Continue reading
The Other Victims of Al-Shabaab
At times when people have tried to draw attention to the other side of a story, they have been accused (sometimes legitimately) of glossing over the glaring crime that has been committed. Pointing at someone’s burnt house while another’s is currently on fire can sometimes be unseemly. But in the case where someone has to pay for another’s crime, we have to speak up.
At least one hundred and forty-seven people were brutally murdered by Al-Shabaab on Thursday, April 2, 2015 at the Garissa University College. Continue reading
A Ghanaian Opinion 