The Law in His Hands

In the year and a half since his inexperienced land of 65 tribes and assorted chiefs and chiefdoms won its independence, Ghana's U.S.-educated Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah has shown little tolerance for those who oppose him. But one thing has kept him from having his way: a compromise constitution, worked out by the British, which set up five regional assemblies to serve alongside the traditional Houses of Chiefs as a permanent check on the central government. That sort of democratic balance has never been to Nkrumah's liking. Last week he set out to remove it.

"Quite frankly," he told Parliament, "my government accepted the constitution as drawn up in the United Kingdom with grave misgivings." He introduced a bill that would enable the government to amend key clauses of the constitution, not by a two-thirds majority in both Parliament and the regional assemblies, but by a simple majority of the Parliament alone, where he controls 80 out of 104 seats. The present arrangement, he blandly explained, made it much too easy for anyone "to challenge much of the legislation required for social improvement and industrial development on the grounds that it is contrary to the constitution."

Opposition Leader K. A. Busia objected that without the two-thirds safeguard "the constitution will become a fragile document on which no one can rely, since it can be changed any day or any moment." The opposition saw Nkrumah's proposal as just one more step toward the complete abolition of the regional assemblies in favor of an all-powerful central government. Nkrumah frankly agreed; the regional assemblies, he said, were "a rape on Mother Ghana," and had produced a "leprous baby." Opposition M.P.s cried, "What's the hurry? What's the hurry?" as Nkrumah rammed through a second reading of the bill. With debate so curtailed, the opposition announced it would hold a public meeting of protest. But when the dissenters gathered at the appointed place, they found it cordoned off by 200 helmeted policemen armed with truncheons.

Nkrumah had the votes to have his way, and the power to enforce it, and plainly intended to continue de-stooling chiefs and deporting opponents. Like the soldiers who have lately taken power all over Southeast Asia, Nkrumah, no soldier, argues that the classic restraints of 18th century constitutional liberalism do not fit the situation he confronts. But on him--and on them--rests the burden of proof that backward steps will result in greater steps forward.

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