Ghana has a grip on the tricky business of African democracy, writes Gamal Nkrumah Petroleum and the promise it heralds might prove to be very useful in oiling the wheels of Ghanaian multi-party democracy. Ghana's Sunday presidential run-off produced expected results, confirming that the experiment of Ghanaian democracy is here to stay. Running neck-and-neck, the Ghanaian presidential race was largely run on fickle changes in economic policy orientation. The two big parties are staunch supporters of economic laissez-faire and it was the government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) under Jerry John Rawlings that virtually sold off the country in a ruinous privatisation regimen. Contemporary Ghana, nevertheless, is considered a success story both economically and politically. It is, indeed the Black Star of the continent. Be that as it may, Ghanaians are not smug about their qualified successes in recent years and ought not to be complacent. Different approaches by the Ghanaian political establishment towards ethnic identity have come into play. Politically, Ghana's 230 constituencies are split along ethnic and regional lines. The Akan people, Ghana's largest ethnic conglomeration constituting no less than 60 per cent of the 22 million-strong population, voted solidly for the hitherto governing New Patriotic Party (NPP). The Akan heartlands, with the notable exception of the coastal Central region, eschew the opposition. A divide ominously similar to the political-ethnic set up in Kenya, where the Kikuyu people have long championed the Party of National Unity of President Mwai Kibaki. The redeeming factor for Ghana is that the West African country has no Orange Democratic Movement led by a strongman such as Kenya's Ralia Odinga. The East African nation teetered dangerously on the edge of a perilous precipice of civil war when the Kenyan National Electoral Commission declared the president's party the winner. Odinga and his opposition henchmen angrily declared the election fraudulent. Ethnic violence ensued. Fortunately, the knife-edge presidential poll in Ghana is highly unlikely to produce such bloody results as Kenya's. The ruling party presidential nominee Nana Akufo-Addo gracefully conceded defeat and congratulated the winner. President-elect John Atta-Mills is a gentle and goodly man. Moreover, his case is exceptional only for its picaresque twist. He had lost the presidential poll to the outgoing Ghanaian President John Kufuor, incidentally popularly known as the "gentle giant" because of his decency, benign character and level-headed composure. That said, the fact remains that Ghana's voters, split along clearly demarcated ethnic fault-lines, are a divided and disgruntled lot. Economic woes, high unemployment among the youth and the global economic meltdown augur ill. However, there is a silver lining if you look hard enough at the Ghanaian economy. Oil, discovered recently in commercial quantities, promises to turn the Ghanaian economy around. Ghana stands poised to become one of the economic dynamos of Africa. In short, as far as Ghana is concerned, we are looking at the politics of hope and approbation, rather than fear and despair. Whatever reassurances oil forecasts, the ethnic conundrum is bound to continue unabated. The non-Akan ethnic groups have a less shared political consciousness than their Akan compatriots. The three regions that constitute the predominately Muslim northern Ghana (Northern, Upper East and Upper West) voted in favour of the opposition, now ruling, NDC. The predominantly Ewe-speaking Volta region also voted for the NDC. The Central region, home to the Fanti Akan people, likewise opted for the NDC. The NPP was confined to the Ashanti, Brong Ahafo and Eastern regions voted solidly for the NPP. While voters in the western constituency of Tain cast their ballots again tipping the balance in favour of the NDC. As the NPP struggles to appeal beyond its largely Akan strongholds and out of its new bout of weakness, it has become clear that the fight to reclaim its historically vacillating position in Ghanaian politics has already begun. That prediction may prove too upbeat if other less prominent opposition parties such as the Convention People's Party of the country's founding father Kwame Nkrumah, make a political comeback. This is not the first time in Ghana, nor in Africa, that the ruling party candidate loses to an opposition presidential hopeful. Atta-Mills scored 50.13 per cent and Akuffo-Addo 49.87 per cent. Neither is Atta-Mills a rare beast in the colourful menagerie of Ghanaian politics. For the moment at least, the NDC can gloat over its less than spectacular victory. Both presidential candidates were 64 years old and advocate the market economy. President-elect Atta Mills, a former economic and taxation professor, is highly unlikely to rock the economic boat. Tax, too, is contrary to expectation not likely to become a defining issue in his government. Atta-Mills, vice- president of Jerry John Rawlings for many years, is bound to learn the lesson of the ruling party that has lost its legislative majority in parliament. Still, the slim lead augurs ill. Not so much because of the prospect of an unstable coalition government, but rather because the NDC and its leader is averse to reverse the economic policies that led to what he termed "eight years of miserable failure" by his predecessor.
