13 January 2009
analysis
Washington, DC — "It's a triumph for Africa," headlined Kenya's Daily Nation on January 7, as Ghana's new President, opposition leader John AttaMills, was sworn in after a closely fought election (http://tinyurl.com/9sdwqs). The sentiment was repeated around the continent and the world, often with pointed comments on the contrast to other recent elections on the continent.
Nigerian and Kenyan media were particularly explicit in making comparisons and calling for their countries to heed Ghana's example. And indeed the occasion was historic, as Atta Mills' inauguration was the second time that the country had peacefully elected and inaugurated an opposition presidential candidate.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains brief selections of African commentaries, beginning with an excerpt from an interview President Atta-Mills gave to a Nigerian journalist in Lagos on his visit to Nigeria this week. Also included is a background analysis by Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, focusing on Ghana's political history since independence, and excerpts from comments in the Daily Independent (Lagos) and the Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra).
Another AfricaFocus Bulletin sent out today focuses on the economic challenges facing the new Ghanaian government, with excerpts from the Ghana Human Development Report 2007 and a 2008 Afrobarometer survey of Ghanaian opinion on economic conditions.
Resources
For an extensive background dossier on the elections, including bibliographic references, see
http://www.ascleiden.nl/Library/Webdossiers/GhanaElections.aspx
For previous issues of AfricaFocus Bulletin on Ghana, and links to additional background information, see
http://www.africafocus.org/country/ghana.php
For books on Ghana and other West Africa countries, visit http://www.africafocus.org/books/west.php (selected by AfricaFocus) http://tinyurl.com/8tqwkl (Amazon search), http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/bookshop (extensive topical selection)
For Ghanaian music on CDs, http://tinyurl.com/9odmx4
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I will ensure women get 40% representation - Attah Mills
Mudiaga Affee
The Punch
1/13/2009
http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art2009011313223675
President John Attah Mills of Ghana, on Sunday attended his first church service in Lagos, where he spoke on issues affecting leadership in Africa and other matters. MUDIAGA AFFE was there.
Excerpts
In the past, Ghanaians left the country as a result of the economic downturn, but today the story is different. What was the success story?
In the 80s when a number of Ghanaians came to Nigeria, we were really in crisis. I believe credit must be given to the PMDC at that time which took over the mantle of leadership and the solid foundation that it laid; its economic recovery programme and other initiatives that laid the foundation for a stronghold on the economy. In the early 80s we were recording negative growth; inflation was more than 100 per cent. At the time the NDC was leaving office, we were recording 4.5 per cent economic growth because inflation had been brought down to 30-40 per cent. A number of initiatives had been taken and I must confess that they have built on that level over time.
How was Ghana able to achieve success in its series of run-off election, considering the fact those other African countries had run into troubled waters while attempting to conduct run-off election?
The main objective of an election is to get a leader and when you go into election there are rules. Very often we talk about free, fair and transparent election, but some people just say it, they really do not mean it. If the election is free and fair, I do not see why you will not accept if you were declared a loser. When you go into contests, there is either a winner or loser and when you are a winner you must be magnanimous in victory. But you see, the problem in Africa is the tendency of someone wanting to cling to power, and you will ask; why would you want to cling to power when the people you are supposedly ruling have indicated that they wanted you to pave the way for someone else? I must say that we must put the interest of the people first, when we do that we would see that all other things will come to place. This is not the first time I am contesting an election in Ghana. In fact I contested the first time, conceded two times even though there were problems, and I thought at a time that if I hadn't conceded we would have had some problems in that country.
In your manifesto, you said you were going to have 40 per cent women in your cabinet, are you still planning to achieve that?
Well at that time, I said we were aiming at 40 per cent. Let me tell you, we have appointed the first woman speaker in the history of that country, and that is for now. We are still going to aim at that because we still have very well qualified women in Ghana through their work, so long as they are willing and available, I do not see why we should bypass them, so women 40 per cent, men 60 per cent.
...
In four years, what would you want Ghanaians to remember you for, what legacies will you leave behind?
I would want to be remembered as the President who used the resources of the country to the benefit of the people of the country and someone who provided equal opportunities for all irrespective of their political affiliation or their ethnic background.
...
Ghana's electoral run-off, Nkrumah to the rescue
Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem
Pambazuka News 413 December 18, 2008
* 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.
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.
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