Ghana's electoral run-off

Don't we all wish we were Ghanaian? They have just had universally acknowledged free and fair elections in which the difference between the two leading candidates (the flag bearer of the ruling party and that of the main opposition and former ruling party) was less than 2 per cent! Yet both groups accepted the outcome without screaming 'rigging', 'intimidation', 'torture', 'irregularities' and threatening 'no candidate = no election' , 'rivers of blood' or legal challenges. Both candidates and their parties and allies are busy preparing for the run-off.

By no means were the electioneering campaigns perfect, especially in hotly contested areas which hold the balance of the votes like Tamale and other parts of the marginalised northern region, where there was some violence. But on a scale of 'do or die' militia politics seen in many African countries – especially Ghana's neighbouring country of Nigeria – what they call violence in Ghana is perhaps less than what goes on in your average student union elections on a university campus.

Ghana is one of few countries on this continent that has an entrenched dominant two party political system. This is largely due to the personal hegemony and radical politics of the late Osagyefo (Akan for ‘redeemer’), Kwame Nkrumah. You were either for him or against him, but never indifferent. Nkrumah stood for radical nationalism and socialist pan-Africanism, while those against him generally opposed both subscribing to ethnic jingoism or a ‘little Ghana’ mentality. Of course not all those opposed to Nkrumah were reactionaries or ethnic jingoists, but generally they were allied to these negative approaches as a means of countering him.

Since that ignoble day of 24 February 1966 when the forces of local reaction and their external imperialist masters overthrew Nkrumah's regime, subsequent regimes in Ghana – whether military or civil – have been judged, consciously or unconsciously, in relation to this president. Even when the Convention People’s Party (CPP) and later other parties were banned neither the military dictatorships nor their compliant civilian regimes could extinguish the CPP or other parties from the hearts and mind of Ghanaians. This is what is generally referred to as the Danquah-Busia and Nkrumahist divide in Ghanaian politics.

Jerry Rawlings’s abortive revolution and subsequent military dictatorship of some 10 years and period of reluctant democratisation during another 10 years failed to establish a third force in Ghanaian politics. His hold on power was always mediated by both a willing and unwilling sectarian collaboration with different pro-Nkrumah forces. In the minds of many pro-Danquah–Busia elements in Ghanaian politics there is any case no distinction between Nkrumah and Rawlings (whom many radicals will call an anti-Nkrumah); they are both considered ‘verandah boys’ who incited the barbarians not just to the gates but into the castle.

President John Kufuor and the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) victory in 2000 was the first time in the history of Ghana that the Danquah-Busia tradition won a legitimate popular vote. Busia's victory in 1969 occurred largely because the military cleared the political field of the CPP and their allies and gave his long-term sparring partner Nkrumah a walk over.

The NPP's victory was partly a reaction against the long-term rule of Rawlings and the excesses of his first ten years in power. The fear that he was going to rule by proxy through his chosen successor, Arthur Mills, and the willingness of many Nkrumahists to cross the political divide gave Kufuor his victory. Kufuor's own ‘gentle giant’ personality and a series of lucky breaks, along with continuing doubts about Arthur Mills as an ineffectual Rawlings poodle and relatively stable economic growth, delivered Kufuor’s NPP an easy second term. Kufuor did not have to do anything significant to gain his victory, but was simply lucky to be at the right place at the right time to generate a 'feel good factor'. For instance, Ghana's 50th anniversary found him there, as well as the African Cup Of Nations, while numerous international meetings put Accra on the global map as a desirable location. But by 2008 things appear to be falling into a familiar historical shape. NPP rule is a class rule with all its ideological and political triumphalism. They represent the voice of privilege, the propertied classes and regionalised capital.

The presidential candidate of the NPP, Nana Akuffo-Ado, foreign minister for seven years under Kufuor, is an able individual, but his party could not deliver a broader social and political base for him to clinch the presidency on the first run. Neither could Jerry Rawlings's popularity and the increasing identification of Arthur Mills as his own man give him a 50 per cent plus majority. Hence the need for a run-off on 28 December. This stalemate has made the votes of a resurgent CPP and other Nkrumahist parties like the People's National Convention (PNC) and individuals a deciding factor. It was important that Nkrumah's daughter, Samia Nkrumah, stood and won her parliamentary seat on a CPP platform. She could become the anchor for a new generation of Nkrumahists in Ghanaian politics.

It is difficult to see how Nana could defeat Mills in the run off. People no longer see the NDC candidate as Rawlings' man but a candidate for change.

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is general secretary of the Global Pan-African Movement, based in Kampala, Uganda, and is also director of Justice Africa, based in London, UK.
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