Ghana’s new veep

Ghana has a new vice president. Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur was vetted by Parliament and sworn-in on Monday, August 6. His appointment was necessitated by the accession of John Mahama as president of Ghana following the sudden death of President John Atta Mills on July 24, 2012.

Amissah-Arthur

 

Until his new appointment, Amissah-Arthur, 61, a former deputy minister of finance, was the governor of the central bank, the Bank of Ghana, (BoG). Forget about the fact that he’s not a charismatic person. Ghanaians have now gotten used to having non-charismatic leaders.

His appointment has generated mixed reaction from within the ruling NDC party. I think the larger Ghanaian public is quite unsure about what he brings to the table albeit he has played critical roles in crafting the country’s economic path over the better part of the last three decades. He spent about half of his entire working life at the Ministry of Finance.

Perhaps what Ghanaians can relate to most is his last posting as governor of the BoG. Amissah-Arther’s tenure at the BoG has seen the national currency, the Cedi, decline sharply against nearly all major trading currencies especially since the beginning of 2012.

Generally, the national currency has tended to come under severe pressure in an election year as this. And so there’s probably nothing new in the latest decline. What is new however is that the person who presided over this decline is now the vice president and the de facto head of the government’s Economic Management Team. A case of more of the same? It could be but not necessarily.

How this plays in the campaigns leading to the December 7, 2012 elections remains to be seen.

Mahama and Amissah-Arthur will serve out what remains of President John Atta Mills’ mandate. They will get the nod of the ruling party in September to contest the December polls together as the party’s presidential candidate(s).

President Mills’s departure, the orderly transition and impending presidential and parliamentary elections in December have focused minds on the health of Ghana’s democracy. The country has made some remarkable progress on the democratic path as exemplified by the 2008 elections, transfer of power and the smooth process leading to the assumption of office by a new president following the sudden death of Mills.

However Ghana’s democratic governance is beset with some deep-seated political problems. The policy making process is heavily centralized and the executive president is extremely powerful, too powerful for the good of the country. The system has also bred a strong party loyalty. The system of political patronage is neo-patrimonial, akin to single party form of governance. Equally debilitating is the weak institutional capacity at both the regulatory and political levels.

I will tackle some of these in a later blog.

Death of President Mills, Ghana’s seamless transition

The shocking news of the death of Ghana’s president, Professor John Atta Mills, 68, filtered through the rather thick grey, cloudy and partly wet Tuesday mid-afternoon. Across the country and the political divide, his death has left Ghanaians in grieve.

Late President Mills

Seven days of morning has been declared. Opposition parties have also suspended their electioneering campaigns in a mark of respect.

That the president was not in perfect health was a fact known to most Ghanaians. In fact over the past several months rumours swirled the media of his death but each time Mills came out to disprove it and so even when the news broke of his death on Tuesday at the 37 Military Hospital, one of Ghana’s leading health facilities, many remained unconvinced until the Chief of Staff at the residency issued a press statement around 16.00 GMT.

Mills welcomes Obama in Accra

Earlier in June, the president returned from a medical checkup in the United States and declared he was well. He even embarked on a short aerobics, jogging on the tarmac of the Kotoka International Airport on arrival.

His demise on July 24 came as a huge surprise and a massive blow to the country.

This blog is not a review of his legacy as such but Prof. Mills, Asomdwehene (king of peace) as he was better known by Ghanaians, will be remembered for a number of things at home. As a person and president, the tax law professor was a typical Ghanaian gentleman: calm, honest, humble, diligent and God-fearing. 

 Presidency confirms his death

I am reliably informed that around midday, the president complained of pain at the back of his neck while working behind his desk in his office at the presidency – before heading to Nigeria later in the day. Doctors were called in. But it is even likely that he died at the presidency before being dispatched to the 37 Military Hospital 15 minutes drive from the presidency. He suffered from throat cancer. He also had difficulty with one eye.

As an evangelical Christian, his faith in God was unquestionable and he seized on every opportunity to thank God for His grace and mercies upon this country.

The soft spoken late president would also be remembered for his punctuality and hands-on attitude to work. His three-and-half years in office saw the national economy grow at an unprecedented 13.5 per cent and inflation drop to its lowest rate in the country’s history. Inflation has since inched up a bit to about 9.4 per cent by the end of June.

At his inauguration into office on January 7, 2009, he promised to be “father to all” and he lived up to his promise by being deeply passionate about the wellbeing of Ghanaians. Many have said he could not translate the passion and impressive economic indicators to tangible improvement in the quality of life of the ordinary Ghanaian.

This morning, a day after his death, many of his country men and women are clad in mourning clothes from the TV morning shows through the streets to offices, both public and private.

An optimist, Prof Mills had a calming influence on Ghana’s sometimes overly heated party politics. Albeit towards to the end he seemed a deeply unhappy, even irritated a man, as his political opponents and indeed some from high up within his own NDC party ranks openly attacked him on all fronts – his politics, policies and his person. He fell out with his former boss and mentor, former President Jerry Rawlings and his wife.

But Rawlings quietly and surprisingly visited Mills at the presidency barely two weeks before his death, possibly to patch up their strained relations.

Anyways, with just about five months to the next presidential and parliamentary elections in December, his untimely death posses some serious challenges to his party but much less so to the country.

Seamless transition

Barely six hours after his death and four hours of its confirmation by the presidency, Mills’ vice president, John Mahama, 53, was sworn-in as president in Parliament in accordance with Ghana’s constitution without the slightest glitch.

Mills' successor: President John Mahama

His death tosses up the chances of the ruling NDC to retain power at the December general elections in which Mills was set to contest.

Mahama is likely to be endorsed by the party hierarchy to contest the presidency on the NDC’s ticket.  It is the most logical thing to do, given the late stage of electioneering campaigns and the fact that Mahama was indeed running the country in all but name even while president Mills was in office.

Mills’ successor is widely respected right around the country and within the political and business classes. A former MP, he is regarded as another well-mannered, cool-headed, even- keeled and fine gentleman with a good grasp of issues.

He is lot media savvy having served as Communications Minister under the Rawlings administration. He read his inaugural speech in Parliament last night from his tablet.

Mahama could be cast as a young, highly respected and more energetic leader capable of connecting well with all Ghanaians, a “brother to all”! His main contender, Nana Akuffo Addo, 68, who was beaten by Mills in the 2008 presidential elections by the tiniest of margins, is a formidable candidate.

How the NDC manages its internal rifts will also be critical. For sometime now, Mahama has fallen out with the Rawlingses and so even though his new office offers him a fresh opportunity to reset their relations and renew strained ties, it is unlikely that he will easily win former president Rawlings and his wife. The Rawlings have set up a new political party, the National Democratic Party (NDP) although they have not pulled out of the NDC. The Rawlingses have not openly identified with the new party neither have they denied association.

Crucially, who Mahama picks as vice president to serve out the remaining term of the late president could play a decisive role to flesh out his strategy and chances in December. Two names have already popped up and these are PV Obeng, former de facto prime minister under the Rawlings military regime and Dr Kwesi Botchwey, a former finance minister (also under Rawlings) and an academic.

The death of President Mills’ and the swift seamless transition has galvanized the nation to consolidate the sense of unity and patriotism. It is fair to imagine at this stage that this half of the electioneering campaign even it resumes will be the most civil, sober and exciting in the run up to December.

Rest in perfect peace dear leader, Prof. John Fiifi Atta Mills!

Jamestown, gays and elections

Jamestown (Accra) and gay rights, what’s the connection? Not really. Well not until this week. Jamestown is one of the original communities of Ghana’s ever expanding capital, Accra.

The suburb is named after a fort built by the British in 1673 and named after King James II, who was a major shareholder in the Royal African Company that traded in gold, slaves and whisky before he ascended the throne. The fort is now a prison –James Fort Remand Prison.

Also known as British Accra (there are Danish Accra and Dutch Accra), Jamestown warmly kisses the Atlantic Ocean in the south and the rather polluted Korle Lagoon on the west. With a large population and a heavily overstretched public infrastructure, Jamestown is a bustling community and the childhood home of some of Ghana’s best boxers and footballers.

A protest against same-sex relationships early in the week has forced homosexuality and gay rights back into the middle of hot-button topics in this political season. Ghanaians go to the polls to elect a president and parliamentarians in December.

The Jamestown protesters including females assaulted revellers attending an early morning marriage ceremony of a lesbian couple with sticks and canes. The protesters arrested two females, a 19-year-old and a 16-year-old who were at the function and sent them to the local police station and urged the police to arrest all gays in the community. But the reasons for the protest and subsequent attacks were not the usual religious, health or the standard socio-cultural reasons.

For the Jamestown anti-gay activists, the level of lesbianism in the area in particular is depriving men of girlfriends and future wives. That is to say there is an emerging shortage of women or they do not want to compete with other lesbians for women to date.

‘Their activities are depriving us of women. Anytime a man decides to go after a woman in the area these lesbians will pounce on him and beat him up. We cannot allow this to go on in the area. These women use money to lure the young girls into this bad habit and deprive us. It must stop,’ the local press quoted one anti-gay activist.

Now that’s a rather fairly new reason for the growing opposition to homosexuality. In the past, the reasons for public opposition were mainly because the practice is a ‘disgusting western’ concept inimical to African values and also because all three dominant faiths – Christianity, Islam and traditional African religion – frown on same-sex relationships.

In November 2011, Ghana’s president, John Atta Mills called the bluff of British PM, David Cameron to cut aid to African nations with anti-gay legislation. Reacting to Cameron’s threats, Mills told Ghanaians the country will never capitulate to Britain or any other country’s whim to legalise same-sex relationships. 

‘I, as president of this nation, will never initiate or support any attempt to legalise homosexuality in Ghana’. 

‘No one can deny Prime Minister Cameron his right to make policies, take initiatives or make statements that reflect his societal norms and ideals but he does not have the right to direct other sovereign nations as to what they should do especially where their societal norms and ideals are different from those which exist in [the] Prime Minister’s society...

‘Let me also say that whiles we acknowledge all the financial assistance and all the aid which has been given to us by our development partners, we will not accept any aid with strings attached, if that aid will not inure to our interest or the implementation or the utilisation of that aid with strings attached would rather worsen our plight as a nation or destroy the very society that we want to use the money to improve,’ the soft-spoken president and former law lecturer said tersely.

Uganda’sYuweri Museveni and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe attacked Cameron as ‘satanic’ over his gay rights threat. Nigeria also asked Cameron to go to hell. But a week ago, a British cardinal and leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland also described the Cameron government’s plans to legalise gay marriage in Britain as ‘madness’, ‘a grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right’ and a ‘redefinition of reality’.

Jamestown anti-gay protesters

Public resentment of same-sex relationship is deep and widespread in Ghana and much of Africa. Homophobia is mostly expressed as attempts to preserve the sanity and socio-cultural fabric of the African society.

With the exception of South Africa no other African country has legalised same-sex relationships. Gay relationships are thus a crime in many of these countries. Classified as ‘unnatural carnal knowledge’, they are considered a misdemeanor in Ghana’s penal code and in most other African nations.

Nigeria and Uganda recently sought to pass new laws in their Parliaments expressly banning homosexuality as well as impose stiffer custodial sentences.

Going to Ghana’s December 2012 elections, the make or break issue is the national economy. The economy grew by 13.5 per cent in 2011 one of the highest growth rates in world albeit it was fueled by oil exports.  
Apart from Mills other presidential aspirants have yet to publicly pronounce on same-sex relationships. But Jamestown may just have pulled the trigger on an issue that may play no mean a role in who gets crowned as Ghana’s president in January 2013 when whoever is elected will assume office.