Anticipating the Ghana elections

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Anticipating the Ghana elections
By Kayode Samuel

AS the world reels in shock from the unfortunate aftermath of the December 27 elections in Kenya, it is wise that we seek to anticipate the upcoming elections in Ghana, another African country that is noted for its peace and order. Elections come up in December 2008 to replace President John Agyekum Kufuor whose second term is now in its final year.

As in Kenya, the Ghana elections have implications for the continuity of the economic progress and investor confidence that the country had built over the last two decades or so. The issues in the Ghana elections may not at first glance seem to provide much cause for worry. But looking critically beneath the surface, there seems to be a 'witches' brew of some of the typical African spoilers now coming into the pot and which should give some cause for concern. I will elaborate on this shortly, but let us quickly enter a word of caution on the situation in Kenya.

Some Nigerians appear to have adopted a beggar-thy-neighbour attitude at the sad turn of events in Kenya. It is as if the Kenyan problem shows that elections can go wrong anywhere and so the world should not treat the Nigerian case as though it were such an outlandish exception. This is a wrong attitude. Kenya had for long been an island of peace and good sense in an otherwise turbulent region. This had impacted positively on its economy although many would argue that this is still largely driven and dominated by whites and Asians and that much of the prosperity is witnessed only in the expatriate community. Regardless of this, Kenya appeared to have organised its politics in a fairly decent manner that insulated it from the earlier epidemic of military take-over on the Continent or the latter phenomenon of election-related violence, civil war and the failed state.

This is why the current situation in Kenya is really such a great shock to everyone. That what is happening there is considered by some to be normal fare in Nigeria is no reason to celebrate it. We should encourage the spread of good examples on our blighted continent rather than find smug satisfaction in the fact that things may not be so smooth-sailing in some other places also. Ghana is one of the few good examples that should be nurtured and sustained, and the time to start really is now.

Now, the run-up to the December elections in Ghana has offered its own fair share of drama across party lines as well as some interesting intervening variables. While some of the drama and the variables provides cause for hilarity, others give some cause for worry - the most notable being that Ghana is about to become an oil exporting country. There are so far three main parties in the elections - the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the Convention Peoples Party (CPP). The choice of flag-bearer for the parties has already thrown up issues that the international community should pay attention to so as to start early to devise appropriate containment measures for any eventuality that could emerge from the December polls.

The NDC is the transmutation of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC). It is the party of Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings whose bloody purge of the governing elite nearly three decades ago laid much of the ground for today's reforms and development, but whose legacy remains contentious. The Rawlings factor still looms large in the politics of Ghana, try as the present Government has done to diminish it. The choice of the party's candidate has fallen - yet again - on Professor John Atta Mills, who was Rawling's last Vice President and who by the 2008 elections would be a three-time candidate. He is backed by the pro-Rawlings old guard and the powerful Fante Confederacy, the umbrella group of the Fante elite. The Fante are one of the major ethnic groups in Ghana. Atta-Mills' emergence as candidate has already brought with it some murmurings about internal democracy within the NDC, especially amongst the young party elite who wonder if he is not a jinxed candidate, having lost two earlier elections in a row.

The need to find a strong running mate for Atta-Mills is currently consuming the energies of the party leadership. This has led some in the party to wonder why after each loss at the polls the NDC old guard had elected to maintain Professor Mills as the constant factor on the ticket while expending so much energy on the search for a running mate. Some have joked that the NDC must be the only party in the world that loses elections because of its running mate rather than its flag-bearer. Anyway, the choice of Professor Mills appears to be cast in stone and there is now tremendous pressure on the youthful John Mahama, Rawlings former Communications Minister to accept the Vice Presidential slot.

Mahama is from the north and it is felt that he being on the ticket could help rally votes in that region towards the NDC. Mahama's candid views on the current to-ing and fro-ing are as yet unclear. There are however suggestions that all of the current rigmarole within the NDC could be a set-piece design towards the eventual emergence of Nana Konadu Rawlings as the running-mate. Nana Konadu is the wife of ex-President Rawlings. A fiery mobiliser who has kept her Women's Movement firmly in the public eye, she is also Asante like the outgoing President. The significance of this factor would be evident presently.

The NPP is the ruling party. It is a party of the centre-right and the inheritor of a legacy that reaches as far back as J. B. Danquah's United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), the first nationalist party in Ghana. The NPP's convention for the choice of its candidate last month attracted a lot of interest - not so much because of the large number of aspirants (18 at the last count) but because there was indeed a real contest afoot. The two leading candidates were Nana Akufo Addo, a former Foreign Minister under Kufuor and Alan Kyeremanten more popularly known by the heavily pregnant alias of Alan Cash. The incumbent President's support for Allan Cash was said to have been palpable and the aspirant (backed by State funds some, some) was rumoured to have tried to live up to his alias in the course of the campaign. In the end Akufo-Addo won. Even though he did not meet the mandatory requirements, the other aspirants, including Alan Cash conceded victory to him.

One issue here is that President Kufuor is Asante just like Allan Cash while Akufo-Addo is an Akyem, a small but influential group. Although there have been no serious mobilization around issues of ethnicity in Ghanaian politics so far, there are fears that the Asante resurgence that was witnessed under Kufuor could be at an end and the manner that the Asante elite would choose to pre-empt this is not quite clear. Others have argued that what really was at stake is the continuity of the Kufuor reforms and the issue of protection for the exiting President after he leaves office.

Yet, some others have said that the battle really was over who would preside over the Ghana economy in the coming years given the recent discovery of oil in large quantities in the country. As the Nigerian experience shows, oil does have a peculiar way of attracting strange characters into the power game. How far Ghana can go in overcoming this factor would be evident from the way the coming elections are handled. Needless to add, this is a potential crisis precipitant that the world needs to watch closely.

The CPP is the old party of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first post-Independence leader. Essentially, the party is in a distant third position but its influence as a balancer could heighten in the case of a close election. In all, the issues in the Ghana elections are quite significant for the future of the country and the image of the African Continent. The discovery of oil is critical and with it, the possible emergence of the inimical brand of politics played around access to oil wealth; how to deal with the lingering Rawlings legacy and the political fortunes of Nana Konadu; the country's position as an emerging market run by a sensible government; the credibility of Africa's transition processes and elections; and the possibilities of another thwarted President trying to play games with the elections - all come up for scrutiny.

I think that it is not too early for civil society in Ghana and the international community to start to proactively put in place an appropriate mechanism for observing and monitoring the Ghana elections so as to forestall any (not-hoped-for) unpleasant aftermath.