Government Endorses Proposal to Lower Presidential Candidate Age to 35, Backs Five-Year Presidential Term
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The government has accepted the Constitutional Review Committee’s recommendation to reduce the minimum age required to contest for the presidency from 40 to 35 years.
Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Thursday, July 30, the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Dr. Dominic Ayine, announced the government’s position, stating, “Minimum eligible age to contest for president reduced to 35 from 40.”
Dr. Ayine also disclosed that the government has agreed with the committee’s proposal to extend the presidential term from four years to five years.
He, however, clarified that, “For the avoidance of doubt, this proposed amendment does not apply to the incumbent President.”
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The Constitutional Review Committee, chaired by Prof. H. Kwasi Prempeh, proposed the five-year presidential term after concluding that the current four-year mandate is too short for governments to effectively implement their development agenda.
Presenting the committee’s final report on December 22, Prof. Prempeh said there was little public support for introducing a third presidential term.
“We couldn’t find a place for a third term; nobody really seemed to like it, there was really no demand for it,” he said.
The committee also recommended reforms to the appointment process for heads of state-owned enterprises and proposed reducing some of the Attorney-General’s responsibilities by creating an Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to handle corruption-related matters, allowing the Attorney-General to focus on constitutional litigation and international arbitration.
Explaining the proposal, Prof. Prempeh stated, “ORAL will be done by some other body. We want to take some of the powers of the A-G and give them to an Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission.”
Responding to that recommendation, Dr. Ayine said, “The government accepts the principle in principle, but the objection does not require a constitutional amendment.”
By: Paulina Armah/ Radio1.
