Ghana in Search of Regional Integration Agenda 119 What Parties Can do to Foster Effective Regional Integration in West Africa Since regional integration is needed in order to diffuse regional tensions, the platforms of the Ghanaian political parties must be free from acts that have the potential to ignite any form of conflict. This implies the development of political party“enabling environments” that can help mainstream the parties into the regional integration process. Doing this means establishing a regulatory framework that enforces political and electoral codes, laws and statutes that direct the parties to peaceful campaigns and legislative harmony. The drafted codes should have the force of law and swift adjudication processes aimed to discourage inter-party conflicts and acrimonies. The legal instrument could make a demand on the parties to harmonize their regional integration policies. This way, losing parties could still find it appropriate to support the ruling party's ECOWAS programmes because'it resonates with their own'. Intensification of the parties' political education on the imperatives of regional integration will direct the publics' attention to the usefulness of cooperation between Ghana and her neighbours. The suggestion is that prioritising the ECOWAS ideals of free movement of goods and persons across the sub-region, democratic governance and peaceful co-existence on the political parties' agenda would help increase popular consciousness about the benefits Ghana's friendship with her neighbours bring to her development process. In contrast to the parties' current manifestoes that provide a limited space for the ECOWAS' agenda, they could be encouraged to devote considerable space – detailing the important dimensions of their integration approach including defining the specific steps the parties would take to achieve sub-regional integration. It may be most ideal for the ECOWAS Secretariat to consider the establishment of a department under its Democracy and Governance unit to ensure congruence between the parties' respective constitutions and manifestos and the basic tenets of the ECOWAS Protocols. Developing a democratic political culture does not concern simply the relations between parties and the rest of society. It also involves the development of consociational principles such as application of proportional representation 143 in election systems, and institutional recognition of ethnic or regional interests to satisfy minority concerns. This approach can help nurture political parties' democratic ambitions, because the range of entry points for political participation is broadened. Unlike highly 143 . Proportional representation(PR) is a category of eelectoral formulas aimed at a close match between the percentage of votes that groups of candidates(grouped by a certain measure) obtain in elections and the percentage of seats they receive(usually in legislative assemblies). PR is a democratic principle rather than an electoral system in itself. It is often contrasted to plurality voting systems, where disproportional seat distribution results from the division of voters into multiple electoral districts, especially"winner takes all" plurality(first past the post) districts. For more explanation see Denis Pilon(2007) The Politics of Voting London: Edmond Montgomery Publications, pp. 3-4.