DRIVING A NATION DOWN AN ABYSS – THE NPP’S MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

On November 7 2000, Americans went to the polls to elect a new leader. In contention were Democratic Candidate, Outgoing Vice President Al Gore and Governor George Walker Bush on the ticket of the Republican Party. After polls closed and results began trickling in, Vice President Al Gore, convinced that he had lost the election put a phone call through to George Bush at 12:30am November 8 to concede defeat. Three hours later, Gore called Bush back to retract his concession as it began to get clearer that the polls had become too close to call as the two contenders were neck-a-neck.

The results showed Bush had won 246 electoral votes, while Gore had 260 electoral votes. 25 electoral votes from the Florida State were yet to provide a clear winner, and that was going to be the decider. About 6 million popular votes were cast in Florida. Whoever won the majority of those 6 million popular votes would get all the 25 electoral votes. The results of the popular votes declared put the margin between the two leading candidates at just 1,784 votes. The results triggered a series of recounts, both hand/manual and machine. Series of legal battles were also activated, as the courts were turned to for decisions on whether recounted results should be admitted.

Following the announcement of the results of the recounts, Bush's lead in Florida was cut down from the 1,784 popular votes to 300. But several other recounts continued to go on in some of the 67 counties in Florida. The Secretary of the State of Florida, as well as the Bush camp filed series of suits at the Florida Supreme Court and other lower courts to stop the on - going recounts. But the Florida Supreme Court on November 21 2000 gave a unanimous ruling that manual recounts may continue and that the totals must be included in the final results. A day after, Governor Bush filed a petition in the highest court of the land, the United States Supreme Court, asking for a review of Florida Supreme Court ruling, in what was the most important of all the legal battles that characterized the 2000 presidential elections.

21 days later, the US Supreme Court rendered a complex decision to overturn the Florida Supreme Court ruling because the recounts as ordered by the Florida court suffered from constitutional problems. A day after, Vice President Gore made a national broadcast, conceding defeat and accepting that Governor Bush had won the race. Fast forward, George Bush was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States on 20th January 2001, even though many are the political analysts who still share the believe that if the US Supreme Court had not stopped the recount, his rival may have emerged winner. On any normal day, an American Presidential election would see a winner being declared less than 10 hours after polls have closed. But this time around, it took 35 days for a winner to be declared.

The details of this story unfolded when I was just 10 years old, and I thus did not have the opportunity to follow developments personally, but my senior colleague who had come of age politically and an American political system watcher did. But upon hearing some communicators of the opposition New Patriotic Party attempt to draw a link between what happened in Florida and the challenge they have mounted to overturn the 2012 Presidential Election results in Ghana, we began making inquiries about the Florida case - reading and asking about it. Above is a summary of our understanding of the developments in the US in 2000, after days of research.

Now, the Florida story teaches us three very important lessons about elections we would want to share; the first is that no election is one hundred percent free and fair. Even in the most democratically matured nations, the processes of electing leaders are never hitch free. Secondly, in any election involving millions of votes, the results of the polls can never be accurate. Every re - calculation of any election results would most likely produce a result different from the earlier recorded one. Thirdly, the Highest court of the land in any serious democracy has no business allowing an alteration of overall election results once declared if the nation is serious about maintaining the sanctity and sacredness of the electoral process, because you would never be able to do a recount or re - tabulation or re - tallying or re - calculation of an electoral result involving millions of voters and get the same figure again. That is not injustice. It is an admission of the hard reality that we run an imperfect system no matter how advanced your democracy is, or how sophisticated the gadgets you use are.

On the morning of 7th December 2012, we had reached the climax of the latest of what has become a four year cycle of an exemplary democratic exercise that has made us the toast of the world among our peers. We would simplify the Ghanaian version of the story because we all watched it unfold before our very own eyes. Ghanaians went to the polls to elect a new President and 275 Parliamentarians on that fateful Friday; the incumbent President, John Dramani Mahama was subsequently declared winner by the Chair of the Electoral Commission, and the NPP has since began an all but nothing attempt to discredit the outcome of the same electoral process that saw them annex power in 2000, and 2004.

What began with an inspiration from scripture from 1 Samuel 17:47; thus the battle is the Lord's, all too soon became a battle of the streets with protests and demonstrations, and has finally transmogrified into a battle is the courts, and now also a battle of boycotts. Many are those, who as a result of all these happenings believe the opposition NPP's campaign sloganeering of the battle is the Lord's, was a mischief of exceptional proportion. Well, if the 2000 American election dispute is anything to go by, then we think what the NPP is engaging in is: “much ado about nothing.” Because even though the Florida Supreme Court decision tend to favour the re - count or re - tabulation or re - calculation idea, the highest court of the land, that is the US Supreme Court frowned on that. And we also agree with that decision.

Now, the NPP's unwarranted attack on the integrity of the Electoral Commission and its Commissioner – Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, their refusal to recognize John Dramani Mahama as leader through their flag bearer's non - concession of defeat and the boycotts of the Presidential Inauguration and Parliament's Appointment Committee sessions; that is the abyss they are driving our nation into, and that we speak of, because it is causing an irreparable damage to our young democracy.

Raising red flags over election results, creating conditions that make a nation sit on tenterhooks during and after elections, and trying to make everyone believe that you could have won an election but for some other institution's weakness or the high handedness of a ruling party is an old trick by opposition political parties in Africa. From Angola to Zimbabwe, and even in the United States of America, we have seen political parties use this same tactic; some of which yielded positive results for them, while others turned out to be exercises in futility, and we foresee the NPP case falling in the latter category.

But by refusing to concede victory to your opponent, and going ahead to the Supreme Court to ask the highest court of the land to declare the NPP winners of the Presidential elections, the NPP has set a bad precedent for future discrediting of future polls. That is the other abyss we speak of. The National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) are the two leading political parties in the country and they would most likely remain so for a long time to come. But with the precedent the NPP has set, we do not for see the NDC ever accepting the results of any future elections in the country and ever conceding defeat if the NPP wins power in future.

What the NPP has done this time around is nothing similar to what the NDC and even the NPP themselves did with regards to their challenge of previous election results in 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004. The desperate attempt to equate the challenge to the other similar challenges to declared election results that have been done over the years cannot be correct. The NPP has taken the challenge to a higher pedestal, and it is not good for our young democracy.

Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo gave his all for this presidential campaign. His campaign started far back in 2009 soon after the NPP lost the 2008 elections with what the NPP called a Thank You Tour. They have run one of the most rigorous and vigorous campaigns in the history of this country. We are not too sure what else the NPP flagbearer could have done to win this election, but we think it is time to let the nation move on.

In the words of former US President Bill Clinton, “when times are tough and people are frustrated and angry and hurting and uncertain, the politics of constant conflict may be good. But what is good politics does not necessarily work in the real world. What works in the real world is cooperation.” The latter is what the NPP should be pursuing; cooperation over conflict. They should aim at being the party of tomorrow, and stop licking their self inflicted wounds of yesterday.

We have come to the end of what was a long and wounding campaign journey, and we think it's about time the negative spin masters of the opposition party lowered their guards to allow the government to do its job. The Ghanaian people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly. It's about time we deactivated the campaign mood and activate onto a national agenda gear.

Over the next four years, we foresee the case of the NPP at the Supreme Court being dragged unending, we foresee the NPP contradicting themselves with their actions and inactions, and we foresee the NPP driving the image of our young democracy down a path of no return into an abyss with their much ado about nothing. The earlier they pull the breaks, the better for the chances of their party in future elections, and the better for us all as a nation. May God be our helper. And may God continue to bless our homeland Ghana.

Stephen Hicks Acheampong
Country Lead
Association of Global Citizens Ghana
[email protected]

Joseph Opoku Gakpo
International Relations and Media Facilitator
Association of Global Citizens Ghana
[email protected]