Don't believe everything you hear...

Don't believe everything you hear...

During my flight from Seattle to Amsterdam, I was having a chat with the young man sitting in front of me. We were discussing our respective world travels, and he told me that shortly after leaving the Netherlands, he planned to go to East Africa.

“I was going to go to Kenya last year,” he explained, “but they were holding elections. And you know how those countries over there are around election time.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Oh, you know, the 'president' doesn't ever want to give up power in those African nations and stuff can get pretty rough.”

I chuckled.

*******

Ghana is, in fact, in the midst of an election, and while the whole country is gripped by a political fever, there's no sign of the Power Glutton President, no sign of the “rough stuff.” Most Ghanaians are exceptionally interested in politics and I see people from all walks of life enjoying hours of intellectual political discussion in various forums; you will find political discussions dominating TVs and radios, marketplaces, and courtyards all over the country. They make liberal arts campuses in America look like graveyards of political apathy.

Elections were held shortly before I arrived, and the presidential election did not result in a winner. Ghana is a multi-party system, and no single party received a majority of votes. Right now we're in the middle of a run-off between the two top parties, and it's going to be a photo finish.

Unlike America, where voting is now mostly an electronic endeavor and results are given almost immediately, most Ghanaians voted in the run-off election 5 days ago. In both the main election and the run-off election, some of the more remote districts didn't receive their voting materials in time, so those towns voted later, after the materials arrived. Right now, the entire country is waiting for a remote little district called Tain to vote; apparently, this rural town will decide the entire presidential election.

Polling stations are full of representatives from Ghana's non-partisan electoral commission, as well as representatives from the running parties. Many polls also have international observers, some of which are there to ensure a fair and unbiased election. Rumors say some international observers are here to also learn the polling techniques to implement at home, since Ghana is known for having fair and peaceful elections.

A Ghanaian ballot is a sheet of paper with the candidates' pictures and names printed next to their political party's seal. A voter inks their thumb, then places their thumbprint in the box next to their preferred candidate. When Mus explained the procedure to me, I was a bit nervous. Why, it's not secret ballot at all! He explained, however, that since Ghana doesn't keep a database of potential matches, a thumbprint really is quite anonymous, and he felt that, while they probably don't check that frequently, the use of the thumbprint is actually a safety measure, since pollsters could potentially double check that each thumbprint is unique within their ballot box (though I don't know how well an untrained eye can distinguish between prints) .

When you register to vote months before the election, you have to register to vote at a specific location. That is the only location you can vote at, and in order to cast your ballot, you have to present your voter's ID card and be checked off a list. As an added precaution, voters must dip their left pinky in permanent ink; this signifies to other pollsters that they've already voted and are not eligible to vote again.

But what about those lacking fingers? I asked. Well, the TV news anchors were asking the same question. I guess they'll allow other finger prints in place of your thumb- but I didn't see an answer as to how one would vote without hands.

But to be fair, I don't know how Americans without hands vote, either.

The two parties in the running are the NPP, which currently is in power, and the NDC, which was in power 8 years ago. So far, the NDC is winning, but by a small margin. The last NDC president was Jerry Rawlings, who originally took power through a coup. After several years of military rule, Rawlings did something that I still can't quite grasp with my head- which, of course, has been filled since childhood with emotionally charged political terms and Good v. Evil paradigms. Rawlings willingly held a referendum to ask Ghanaians what kind of government they wanted. He gave them the options of continuing under military rule, of switching to single party rule, or of moving to multi-party rule. Ghanaians wanted multi-party rule, and Rawlings held elections. He won the first election, and his new government set up constitutional rule. The new Constitution limited presidents to two terms, which meant that Rawlings couldn't run in the next election. His party lost that next election, and the current president, President Kuffuor of the NPP was elected into office.

While I haven't agreed with all of President Kuffuor's policies, he did do some good things when he took office. He reinstated freedom of press, for example, which has encouraged the atmosphere of lively political debate that we see now. Press coverage of politics is practically non-stop, and various perspectives are represented. Even on the government run TV station (something like Britain's BBC), both parties have run long campaign ads. And on the street, everyone is discussing the election. Even within the family Mus and I are staying with, I've been watching young girls age 10-15 debate the political issues with their mother. I certainly wasn't so interested in politics at that age. Ghana is buzzing with political discussion.

President Kuffuor is a lame duck president; the candidates include Nana Akuffo-Addo, who was chosen by NPP during their party primaries last year (and as far as I can tell, those primaries don't resemble American primaries at all). The NDC is running Professor Atta Mills, who was Rawlings vice-president and who has run for president twice before.

After it was decided there would be a run-off, BBC World News did a report on the election that was disappointingly biased. I think the reporter felt that there wasn't enough meat to the story, and wanted to make it more interesting by adding a level of danger to it. In the report, he talked about the upcoming run-off, interviewed some staunch supporters of both sides, and signed off saying that the streets of Ghana were quiet and peaceful... for now. He made it sound as if the atmosphere was so charged with anger, fervor, nationalism, etc, that people would whip out machine guns at any moment and start shooting small children. The reporter and I were in the same city; yet our perceptions couldn't be more different.

In reality, there have been some reports of isolated violence in remote areas in the far North of Ghana, but there has been pockets of violence up there on and off for sometime, often revolving around chieftancy disputes. There have been no reported deaths that I have heard of up there- the reports talk of some injuries and property damage

*******

The Ghanaian people have spoken, and they've voted for change. Professor Atta Mills of the NDC is the President elect. The race was unbelievably close, with Professor Mills getting only 50.23% of the eligible votes. I would most like to see this government improve the lot of government workers. I feel that if police officers and public school teachers were paid a living wage and paid on time, that would make a big difference for the average Ghanaian. As is, many government teachers go months without seeing any wages, and finally they have to quit and look for other work because they can no longer feed themselves. This is obviously very disruptive to the educational system and discourages well-trained and qualified teachers from working in public schools. I think better and promptly paid policemen would also curb police corruption, something the government is really trying to work on right now. I don't know how bad or rampant police corruption is- in my opinion, I feel safer with police presence than without, same as in America. But Mus's dad was on the police force for many years, and they know from experience that it's hard to feed a family on that salary, and I'm sure that influences policemen to take the occasional bribe. The government has created a commission that investigates police corruption, and they have been advertising to Ghanaian citizens about it's existence and how to report corruption, encouraging civilians to actively participate in the process, using the resource to curb corruption. While I think this is a great measure and I applaud their establishing accountability to their citizens, the government should also pay the officers a living wage- capable of feeding and clothing a family- and thus remove some of the incentive to accept bribes. Their work, after all, is extremely valuable to society.

And to wrap this up, let me give a few interesting tidbits about the election:

-The transparency was amazing. The Electoral Commission came on TV and told exact figures of votes received, briefly outlined the complaints listed by the major parties, and clearly rebutted the complaints (both parties were complaining about “voting irregularities” in a few locations, but could not provide proof- Mus says they complain about the same thing in the same areas every election.) The Commission gave a lot of detail as to how they arrived at their final conclusion, and gave lots of numbers and figures.

-It's a minor thing, but the way the Electoral Commission delivered the figures drove me a little batty. Instead of saying “nine million three hundred thousand... etc.” they read the individual digits, saying “nine three zero zero...etc.” News anchors do this too, and it's hard keeping track of upwards of seven digits in your head and mentally inserting the commas in the appropriate places.

-Around 1% of the cast ballots were discarded due to improper or unclear voting. That makes me a bit nervous, honestly. That's wider than the winning margin.

-Ghana's new Speaker of Parliament is a woman, the first in Ghana's history to hold that position.

-The daughter of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first president and founder of the CPP political party, ran under the CPP banner and was elected to a seat in parliament by the constituents of her father's home region, beating out an incumbent Master of Parliament.

-Newscasters are really encouraging people to “peacefully jubilate” and emphasizing that the atmosphere in Accra is “calm and peaceful.” Personally, I can hear some “jubilating” going on even here in calm little Obo (Why don't we ever use the word “jubilate” in America? It's a fun word...)


After almost a month of voting and counting, Professor Atta Mills was sworn into office on January 7th, a mere 3 days after the announcement of his victory.