A. R. Harruna Attah
13 May 2008
column
Accra — Someone once said, I think it was Henry Kissinger, that political power is an aphrodisiac. I bet it is also an intoxicant! Look at good old Mugabe: Why would he want to hold even as it must be clear to him that he has long gone past his level of incompetence.
Here at home, look at how Rawlings and his wife continue to haunt our political atmosphere after all the power they wielded from December 1981 to January 2002. Some people never seem to have enough of the stuff. In Kenya it was Mwai Kibaki's fiddling with the electoral process, so that he would have a second term which sent his country to the brink.
They tell me that the mini civil war that ensued has almost wiped out the country's great tourism industry. What a shame.
The Russians, yes, the Russians of the Putin generation seem to have found a workable solution: Enjoy two terms as president and on your way out stop over in the prime minister's office and enjoy that too for a while and perhaps, who knows, if your term in the prime minister's office runs out and your national constitution is silent on such things, return once more to the president's office and keep moving up and down and sideways for as long as your "popularity" holds!
We do not have the office of prime minister in Ghana; the nearest to such a thing we have is the office of chief of staff. Can you imagine JAK on January 7 working his way down to Kwadwo Mpiani's office and taking over as the incoming president's chief of staff or indeed as some people are suggesting, to see Vice President Aliu Mahama accepting to run as vice presidential candidate to the NPP presidential candidate! 12 years, or 16 years as a vice president would be some record! That is if the NPP should get a third term and a fourth...
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