THE POLITICAL CLASS By Abena Osegu Boateng
Often when I hear references to the political class, I just wonder what it is, is the business of politics reserved for any particular class? What is politics anyway?
My understanding of politics has always been the process or art of influencing and making decisions on how the goods and services we need are produced and distributed.
If this understanding is correct, then politics must involve any and everybody. It must be about all citizens of this planet because it is essentially about our survival.
So is there a political class? I asked my old school friend who studied political science for a first-degree. She said the political class is made up of those in the frontline of politics.
Woow!
Was she referring to all the serial callers, the so-called party communicators, the party executives, the parliamentary aspirants and members of parliament, the president and his vice and the presidential aspirants? What about all the so-called foot soldiers and the members of the vigilante groups?
What a class? And if classes have common interests, what binds all these groups of people together?
If this is a class, then it is really a very debased one. This class does not give a demn about the truth. It is not concerned about the national interest. And usually, it doesn't care whether it makes sense or not.
I have heard a Vice President speaking gibberish. In one breadth, he says that when the fundamentals of the economy are weak, the exchange rate will expose you. He then turns round after four years and says that when the exchange rate worsens it does not mean the fundamentals are weak.
A president once described the most accomplished coup maker in Ghana as his mentor. He claimed that his inspiration for participation in national politics was the coup maker.
The strange thing is that under the same president those who mention coups publicly are promptly arrested, and sometimes locked up. Coup has become a forbidden word. Nobody must hint at the possibility of a coup just in case some soldiers may be tempted to also become an inspiration for another democratically elected President.
What a world and what a political class?