Sometimes When Change Becomes Definite, Casualties Emerge!

Last Thursday, in the heat of waiting for Madam’s declaration, a friend in the General Office who recently graduated with an Mphil in Medical Biochemistry and blogs on medical and health related issues requested I do a write up for him concerning the massive NDC defeat in the elections. More especially in the central region.

I assured him of doing some research as usual to see if I can make some sense of the situation. But I was quick to add that I am not yet a qualified political scientist like Dr Isaac Owusu-Mensah. Perhaps not until I finish my PhD. Moreover I am still learning to sharpen my skills in scientific electoral political analysis. I am just a student of management and public affairs. I also told him since leaving the four walls of the corridors of the University of Cape Coast I have not followed much of politics in the central region. Excerpt the noise I hear Mr Allottey Jacobs makes.

So while contemplating I remembered I am a Ghanaian youth with a political common sense and I have also written a class paper on the contributions of party leadership to electoral outcomes with the 2000 and 2008 elections as case studies.

In politics, a Party leader is the most powerful official within a political party. He or she speaks to his or her political party and represents them. The party leader is typically responsible for managing the party's relationship with the general public. This is according to Wikipedia.

According to Professor Joseph R. A. Ayee, market forces may create the conditions for success or failure of a state; but a critical factor determining which states succeed and which do not is political leadership. He further asserts that ‘’when difficulties arise, a call for leadership is inevitably sounded.

It is worthy to note, to some extent democracy has enhanced the importance of personality by compelling leaders-political, bureaucratic, and traditional religious or corporate to ‘’project themselves’’ as a way of gaining support (Ayee 2001). This tendency has undoubtedly been strengthened by modern means of mass communication (especially television), which tend to emphasize personality rather than policies and provide leaders with powerful weapons with which to manipulate their public images.

Campaign organizers and the media appear to agree that voters’ perceptions of party leaders have an important impact on the vote: substantial effort is made to ensure that leaders look good, that they speak well, and that they are up in the polls (Bittner, 2008). Media reports during election campaigns focus on the horserace and how leaders are perceived in the public eye. In contrast, the academic literature is much more divided. Some suggest that leaders play an important role in the vote calculus, while others argue that in comparison to other factors (such as partisanship and the economy) perceptions of leaders have only a minimal impact.

Problematically, the literature on party leaders is diverse and non-cumulative (Bittner, 2008)..

Existing studies have been based primarily upon the analysis of only a single election and scholars have relied upon different survey questions in varying formats to inform their conclusions. These differences have resulted in the inconclusiveness of the literature. An effective evaluation of the role of party leaders requires a larger study, comparative across both time and space (Bittner, 2008).

To reference Alexander K. D. Frempong, whiles there was so much apathy and break away in the NDC prior to the 2000 elections due to the handpicking of the late Professor Atta Mills, the NPP was doing everything to avoid a third consecutive election defeat. The NPP decided to contest the election without another alliance. It also re-nominated Kufuor as its presidential candidates more than two years ahead of the election. This allowed the candidate enough time to win back the support of his challengers in the primary, to tour all parts of the country and to adopt attractive campaign strategies. The party also benefited from the hard work of its 61 parliamentary candidates which kept the NDC government on its toes and the NPP in the political and electoral limelight.

In addition to the two major parties, five other parties contested the presidential election. In the end there was an inconclusive first round resulting in the first runoff in the Fourth Republic.

The 2008 presidential election resembled that of 2000 in some respects. The process of selecting a successor in the ruling NPP to replace President Kufuor created divisions within the party. The acrimonious NPP parliamentary primaries made it difficult to mobilize at the constituency level in support of the presidential election.

And so going straight to the point whiles many thought the NPP was going into this year’s elections with a divided front to the extent of having a chairman in an acting capacity and as was capitalised on by the incumbent NDC to score cheap political points it was the only resilient leadership strategy for the NPP treat its internal saboteurs with all the contempt and hostility they deserve. It was a strategy adopted by Dr Nkrumah’s CPP prior to the 1954 elections and he won massively to the dismay of critics.

So clearly the NPP leadership has contributed significantly to their victory and the quality of persons they mounted also played a part. This is as against the NDCs.

Then the change bit. Change is inevitable. Change is timely. When it is due nothing will stop it from happening. According to John F. Kennedy ‘‘Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.’’ George Bernard Shaw has said ‘‘progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

And this where I chip in my earlier post. In a democracy when power is concentrated in one hand for a longer period without resilient institutions, accountable and transparent leadership, it breeds massive corruption and impunity. As was evident in the JDM administration.

I believe it's the very reason the framers of the constitution gave an opportunity for citizens to make periodic impart with their thump since by far it is the greatest avenue for political and governance participation more especially for ordinary citizens like me.

Change in power even if will not end corruption will either give an opportunity for culprits to be held accountable or give a new start to corruption. We can't let this country decay and rot.

That is why power has changed hands this year. If for nothing at all there will be a new beginning for everything even if it's includes corruption.

Let it also be noted that when change is definite, causalities emerge. What I mean by this is that yes the NPP won majority seats in the central region but it does not mean all of them are and will be good representatives. Some should not even have won. They are only beneficiaries of time and season.

Likewise most of the NDC candidates who lost did so not because they are not competent enough but that they are merely casualties of change. Something I can confidently call political occupational hazards.

REFERENCES
Bittner, A. 2008. Platform or personality? Understanding the role of leaders in election outcomes

Frimpong,K.D.A ( 2015 ) “ Elections in Ghana (1951-2012)” : Life Begins @ 60 publishers,Accra Ghana.

Agyeman-Duah B. (2005) Elections and Electoral Politics in Ghana’s Fourth Republic, Crirtical Perspectives No. 18, Accra : Ghana Center for Democratic Development, CDD-Ghana.

Amoah, Michael (2009) “ The Most Difficult Decision Yet: Ghana’s 2008 Presidential Elections”, African Journal of Political Science and International Relations, Vol. 3(4), Aril, pp. 174-181.

Austin, Denis(1970) Politics in Ghana, London Oxford university Press