Ghana: Politicking After the Mourning

A wave of national sympathy for the late President Mills is forcing politicians to reassess their election strategies.

For Ghanaians, funerals assume a special role in the social order. Multiply that a hundredfold for the funeral of a sitting head of state. While their compatriots were still stunned by the news of the death of President John Evans Atta Mills on 24 July, the elders of the governing National Democratic Congress orchestrated an impressively smooth transition.

They rapidly agreed that Vice-President John Dramani Mahama should take over, as the constitution dictates. At his inauguration in the early evening of the same day, Mahama said he was 'personally devastated', adding that he had lost 'a father, a friend, a mentor and senior comrade'.

The two men shared a conciliatory style but Mahama is more the professional politician, eager to shape events at a critical point in Ghana's history, as the economy benefits from oil and gas production. His backers acted quickly and decisively. The author of an evocative memoir about growing up in Ghana published in the United States last month*, Mahama is a popular figure and liked across party lines. He will be a hard target for his opponents to attack and will benefit from some sympathy.

Mahama was quickly endorsed as the NDC's presidential candidate at a National Executive Committee meeting convened by General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia on 26 July. Mahama then announced his running mate, Bank of Ghana Governor Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, on 31 July.

The next big date for Mahama will be his oration at the state funeral ceremonies, which last from 8 to 10 August. With a cast of African leaders and international dignitaries in the audience, some in the Mahama camp are calling it his 'Obama moment'. They compare it to the then Senator Barack Obama's speech to the Democratic Party Convention in 2004.

Mahama will have to convey a credible message of national reconciliation, after some months of vicious local politicking by both the NDC and the opposition New Patriotic Party. Crafting an inspiring speech that stays away from obvious partisanship just five months before national elections will be testing.

Obama-style vision

Mahama is expected to include a vision of how the coming oil and gas riches will benefit Ghanaians. Most are still earning under US$1,500 a year, despite the country's graduation into the league of lower middle-income countries. Some tough talking on accountability and corruption would also go down well, following months of reports about state funds paying off judgements, to the benefit of financiers of both the two main parties (AC Vol 53 No 4, Who paid whom for what? & The Woyome scandal and its casualties).

The NDC will still have to hold an extraordinary national conference around 1 September to confirm the National Executive Committee's choice. Few expect any debate on the issue. Mahama's main opponents, former President Jerry John Rawlings and his wife Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, were in Congo-Brazzaville attending the launch of a business magazine. We hear they played no role in the management of the succession, although one of their colleagues described the party's endorsement of Mahama as 'hasty'.

A report circulated that Nana Rawlings would claim the presidential nomination because she had come second in the party's presidential primaries last July but it amounted to nothing. She and Mills had been the only contenders, and she got less than 5% of the vote. Now Nana and Jerry Rawlings are linked to the formation of a rival, the National Democratic Party (whose flag bears a close resemblance to that of the NDC). If they were to throw their support behind the new party, it would certainly damage the NDC and confuse those voters still personally loyal to ex-President Rawlings.

An early priority for Mahama will be to heal the rift with the Rawlingses. That will be difficult. Rawlings and his wife directed their vitriol against President Mills, criticising him for being too weak and too slow (they were fully aware of his advanced throat cancer) but also targeted Mahama. He is trying to get the couple a role in the three-day funeral, although Mills's wife Naadu and other family members are deeply opposed. Now with all the top positions in the NDC and government filled, there's little that Mahama can offer the Rawlingses in terms of patronage.

One solution may be to reappoint Jerry Rawlings as special representative, although his United Nations ambassadorial appointments have turned out badly. Nor would that satisfy Nana Rawlings's demand for recognition. Her friends say she would be unlikely to accept a ministry in Mahama's government. His own allies are counselling against appeasing the pair but he cannot afford to take the risk of their sabotaging the NDC campaign.

Beyond this, Mahama looks unlikely to try a sweeping reshuffle. He knows that economic matters, which are not his strongest suit, will dominate the election campaign. His choice of Amissah-Arthur is astute. So far, as he battled with inflationary pressures, the Bank Governor has held off demands to cut interest rates and the value of the cedi, which has fallen 17% against the US dollar this year. Amissah-Arthur has urged the government to pay off the mounting arrears to local suppliers; doing so would inject a substantial sum into the national economy before the vote.

The ratings agencies have already warned of the widening fiscal deficit, now up to 6.7% of gross domestic product from the earlier target of 4.8%. After financing an 18% rise in public-sector salaries and continuing fuel subsidies, there is no prospect the deficit will be reduced before the elections. Yet Amissah-Arthur and Finance Minister Kwabena Duffuor are likely to draw the line now. Amissah- Arthur was Deputy Finance Minister under Kwesi Botchwey, who resigned from the NDC government in 1995 in protest at pre-election spending which would wreck the prospects of macro-economic stability.

Claims of economic mismanagement will be the first line of attack for the NPP presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. His Communications Director, Nana Akomea, already argues that Mahama cannot distance himself from Mills's economic legacy. Indeed, Mahama is unlikely to try: the NDC has already produced a 300-page book celebrating its social and economic policy achievements in exhaustive detail. The policy and party lines are already drawn and full election battle is set to resume, almost immediately after the final day of the obsequies on 10 August.

* My First Coup d'Etat, John Dramani Mahama. Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2012.