Legal scholar and Centre for Democratic Development Ghana (CDD-Ghana) Fellow, Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, popularly known as Kwaku Azar, has cautioned that political parties risk long-term decline and eventual collapse if they abandon intellectual seriousness and moral restraint in pursuit of short-term political gains.
In a Facebook post, Prof. Asare argued that while political analysts often explain the rise and fall of parties through factors such as ethnicity, money, incumbency or propaganda, the real danger lies deeper.
“Political parties do not collapse first at the ballot box. They collapse in the mind and in the soul long before the votes are counted,” he wrote.
According to him, most parties begin with “clear diagnoses of national problems, coherent philosophies of governance, and leaders who can argue, persuade, and reflect.”
These ideas, he noted, form the foundation that attracts supporters and gives the party purpose.
However, he warned that when parties stop thinking, listening and learning, “ideas give way to slogans.
Evidence gives way to insults. Policy gives way to personality.”
He described this shift as “intellectual decay,” which ultimately robs parties of the capacity to govern.
“When a party no longer values competence, depth, or internal debate, it replaces thinkers with cheerleaders,” Prof. Asare said, adding that dissenters are then treated as enemies and complexity is viewed as betrayal.
Additionally, he stated unequivocally that moral decay is what ultimately destroys political traditions.
He explained that moral virtue in politics is not about perfection, but about “honesty, restraint, accountability, and respect for public trust.”
He criticised the tendency of political actors to excuse wrongdoing on the basis that “it started from Adam” or that “our people are doing it,” warning that such justifications quietly erode the bond between parties and citizens.
“A party that campaigns on integrity cannot survive long if it normalizes impunity,” he said, adding that parties that once defended institutions cannot endure if they turn on judges, auditors, journalists or critics who ask hard questions.
Prof. Asare observed that parties in decline often misread the warning signs, blaming voter apathy or political cycles instead of engaging in self-examination.
“Instead of reform, it doubles down. Instead of renewing leadership and ideas, it recycles slogans and blames enemies, real or imagined,” he noted.
He stressed that voters may be patient, but they are not naïve.
“They may tolerate hardship, but they do not indefinitely tolerate hypocrisy,” he wrote.
Drawing on lessons from political history, Prof. Asare said parties that abandon intellectual seriousness and moral restraint eventually lose legitimacy, credibility and power, not because voters are ungrateful, but because the parties forget why they exist.
“Political survival is not guaranteed by loudness, money, distortion, gaslighting, or intimidation,” he stated.
“It is sustained by ideas that can withstand scrutiny and character that can withstand power.”
He urged political parties, whether in government or opposition, to resist recklessness and arrogance, warning that “a party that abandons rigor in opposition will govern badly when it wins; a party that abandons restraint in power will eventually be rejected.”
According to him, intellectual seriousness and moral discipline are not campaign tools, but “the permanent conditions for political credibility and democratic survival.”
