In a proper system, political parties would rather be fighting to show how different their proposed paths to solving serious national problems are and how superior their diagnosis and solutions would be rather than the recriminations between the governing National Democratic Congress and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) about who which of them will steal the other’s manifesto ideas, Mr Bright Simons, honorary vice president of IMANI Ghana,has said.

Both the NDC and the NPP have traded accusations, with each maintaining that the other plagiarised its ideas.

NPP flag bearer Nana Akufo-Addo recently said the NDC was always waiting to steal his ideas once he makes them known.

The NDC’s General Secretary, Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketiah has, however, responded to Mr Akufo-Addo by saying his party does not steal ideas from losers. “I have heard so many people say that NDC is waiting for NPP before we release our manifesto. We don’t learn from losers. We set the pace. I repeat NDC does not learn from losers. We rather set the pace for them to copy.”

In a Facebook post on Monday September 5, Mr Simons wrote: “I mean how ridiculous can this get? Why should anyone steal policies or fear the theft of their policies in a serious democracy?”

“In a proper system, parties will be fighting to show how different their proposed paths to solving serious national problems are, and how superior their diagnosis and solutions therefore would be. They would go to every length to show the brilliance of their alternative paths to solving widely lamented problems in health, education, agriculture, housing and transport. They will welcome rigorous debate over the minutiae of their plans and their cost-effectiveness while pointing to how the different approaches being championed by their rivals are inferior, expensive, and counter-productive.

“Here, on the other hand, the least sign of scrutiny, analysis, and interrogation to tease out the quality of proposed solutions to problems generates crazy storms of controversy and literal bloodlust.

“To evade the accountability that integrity would impose and swerve the rigour that detailed evaluation would force upon them, politicians have reduced the entire democratic competition to buzzwords, slogans, choice phrases, spectacle and grandstanding lollipop boards they insist must be treated as 'visions'. The problem of course is that buzzwords and slogans can indeed be stolen. Real policies are hard to think up, flesh out, and even harder to implement. So, who in their right mind would steal real policies in a proper democracy?”