John Mahama, Ghana’s current President, presumably has his back against a wall –politically speaking –but it is difficult to predict from his buoyancy.
But then, again, how can a government under constant attacks under a myriad of national challenges, actually wrest a vacant parliamentary seat previously held by the main opposition party?
Perhaps, there is a method to John Mahama’s ‘madness’ after all; something which ought to make his staunchest critics pause and reflect for a minute!
Four months to the 2012 presidential election, none can forget the tragedy that struck the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) with the sudden demise of President Mills, the party’s candidate.
A relatively youthful Mahama subsequently found himself leading the NDC’s charge. For unexplained reasons, President Rawlings, famous for his charisma in energising the ranks of the party he founded, did not campaign for John Mahama.
Left to his own devices, Mahama quickly rallied together a coalition of the willing, targeted and heavily marketed the NDC to a younger voter population, and relied heavily on what would appear to be a well-oiled grassroots vigorous campaign machinery of the party. The rest, as they say, is history. Through a first-round victory, he knocked out seasoned campaigners, some of whom took their victory for granted in the event of Mills’s passing!
My second reflection on Mahama’s political skills pertains to his appointment of an Electoral Commissioner. With the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP’s) eight-month-contest at the Supreme Court in the background, loud calls from many quarters for electoral reforms and louder calls for broad stakeholder consultation in the appointment of the next Electoral Commissioner, the President’s work seemed cut out for him.
How was he going to appoint a commissioner who would gain immediate acceptability from key political actors? To give the matter a legal twist, a journalist filed a suit, still pending, at the Supreme Court seeking legal interpretation on the roles of the Council of State and the President in the commissioner’s appointment.
Against this contentious background, the President suddenly announced the appointment of a new Electoral Commissioner to replace the retired Dr Afari Gyan. Of all the happenings in the aftermath of this appointment, I was most struck by the widespread acclaim and acceptance of Mrs Charlotte Osei’s sterling credentials and the virtual total lack of controversy.
How did the President achieve this feat on such a vexed issue, I wondered. I was, however, not convinced that this had happened by chance or was as smooth as it looked. I strongly suspected that the President had done some heavy backroom lobbying, tested and secured quiet acceptability before publicly announcing the appointment of the immediate past head of the National Council for Civic Education (NCCE).
Indeed, I would be totally surprised if the political parties also heard Mrs Osei’s name for the first time in public. It certainly took political skill to get such a milestone decision through so effortlessly and I recognise that.
The Talensi parliamentary by-election is my last point of reference. In Ghana today, five sentences are not uttered without a frustrated reference to the crippling power crises, aka ‘dumsor’, or the weakened position of the cedi. In addition to this, the opposition NPP was the incumbent for the vacant Talensi seat.
For many, a loss for the ruling NDC was a foregone conclusion. It is one thing for NDC party aficionados to predict an automatic win, but which President in their right senses will not only predict a win, but confidently label the Talensi by-election a foretaste of the NDC’s coming good fortune in the 2016 national election? Why would President Mahama want to expose himself in this manner? How would he rationalise a possible NDC loss then?
Surprise surprise — this so called highly unpopular and much lambasted ruling government actually won the bye-election, wresting the seat from the main opposition party sometimes strutting around with a cocky fait accompli attitude towards the 2016 election!
Maybe, just maybe, John Mahama is not as washed out as some would have us believe. Maybe he is in better touch with the grassroots. Maybe, he has a better sense of the priorities of the electorate. Maybe he is far more discerning on matters of electoral choices.
These unanswered questions are why honestly, if I were the opponent of John Mahama and the National Democratic Congress, I would promptly sit up and put the two under closer scrutiny! For they probably know what they are doing and there could be a lesson or two to learn!
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