You may by now be aware that both sitting Vice Presidents in Ghana and the United States of America are in a contest of their lives against former Presidents who are seeking to secure their final terms in office. And you probably also know that a few hours after President Donald Trump ordered an army of protestors to occupy the US Senate, someone in Ghana with the appropriate size of cojones ordered armed military men into the chamber of Parliament over election disagreements. Striking right?
Well, there are more similarities and commonalities between the US and Ghana’s electoral system that would intrigue and shock you. With just a few days before both countries go to the polls, allow me to take you on a journey of the striking similarities between these two democracies that would make you swear Ghanaian and American voters attend a conference every 4 years and decide in unison, what to do at the polls.
After Independence in 1957, Ghana went through multiple coup d’etats, until the early 90s when the country decided to try Democracy again. The year for the first election was 1992. Incidentally, it was the year the United States of America was conducting elections too- except that the 1992 Elections would have been the umpteenth time for the US.
The interesting thing about the 1992 election is not just the year it was conducted, but the day and month were the same: Tuesday, November 3! Although that date was extended by a month in subsequent elections for Ghana, the two countries have been behaving similarly since then, with Ghanaian legislators continually trying without success, to make Ghanaians vote in early November like the US voters do.
That day, when US voters elected the Democrats into office, their Ghanaian counterparts also elected a party with “Democrats” in its name into office, as if by design.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) had just been formed as an amalgam of political parties and groupings to be led by Jerry John Rawlings into the 1992 Elections. He became the 1st President of the 4th Republic while his opposite number in the US, Bill Clinton was elected the 42nd President of the United States. Despite the age difference between the two parties, they would have a lot of interesting parallels over the next 3 decades.
Both Clinton and Rawlings were re-elected in 1996, enabling them to complete their constitutionally guaranteed two Presidential term limits. The two parties are both Center-Left, championing the social democratic political values.
When Clinton and Rawlings finished their terms in the year 2000, their respective parties sponsored the sitting Vice Presidents as candidates for that year’s election. Interestingly, both Vice Presidents, John Evans Atta Mills of the NDC in Ghana and Al Gore of the Democrats in the US were defeated at the polls, ending the 8 year reign of the 2 ‘Democrats’.
The two parties that were ushered into office that year, can best be described as identical twins, just like the two parties they defeated.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Ghana is a center-right and liberal-conservative political party while the Republican Party in the US is seen by many political analysts as holding similar ideologies. But ideology is not the only thing that makes the two parties identical.
The colours of the NPP in Ghana, just like that of the Republicans in the US, are RED, WHITE and BLUE. As if that is not enough, both parties have the elephant as a symbol. This means an NPP member in Ghana can easily wear his party paraphernalia at a Republican Party rally in New York without anyone noticing the difference.
The US voters re-elected Republican George Walker Bush in November 2004 and the Ghanaian voters did the same for John Agyekum Kufuor a month later in December 2004.
When George Bush ended his term after 8 years in office, a powerful windstorm of change blew his elephant party out of office. His replacement, Barack Obama of the Democrats was so phenomenal that supporters of the ‘Democrats’ in Ghana were often seen in T-shirts with his photo and that of their candidate, John Evans Atta Mills at campaign rallies. In fact, if you observed the rallies of 2008, you would be forgiven if you thought Obama was a Presidential candidate in the Ghana election.
Indeed, a song composed for Barrack Obama by Ghanaian artist, Blakk Rasta was prominent on the playlist of DJs at NDC rallies in that year. It may well have been the victory song in 2009 after the narrow win by the NDC.
As if on cue, the USA brought back the Democrats as Ghana did for the NDC. The two parties would enjoy two safe and healthy terms until 2016 when the 8-year parallel term ends for the center-left parties and begins for the rightist parties.
Now, let’s do a quick recap of the 1992-2000 Rawlings/Clinton era because there are two important personalities in that era the gods of Ghana/US elections would need to use on the electoral map after 2010. When Bill Clinton visited Ghana in 1998, he was accompanied by his wife, Hillary. They were hosted by Rawlings and his wife, Nana Konadu. The four of them had a very colourful photograph which could pass as a post card for both countries.
More than 10 years after their husbands left office, these two women decided to run for President in their respective countries. While none of them could become President, Hillary Clinton managed to go as far as becoming the Presidential candidate of the Democrats in election 2016, a thing Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings failed to do in election 2012, having been defeated resoundingly by John Atta Mills in the party primaries.
In 2016, 8 years after the Democrats swept to power in the two countries, the two elephant parties in the US and Ghana were re-elected by voters.
The next major election was in 2020 and because Ghanaians have voted the same way Americans voted since 1992, it was generally expected that the parallels would continue. But the Democrats in Ghana led by John Dramani Mahama betrayed the plan. While the Democrats in the US led by Joe Biden won the election in 2020, breaking the 8 year cycle which had become routine for the two parties, their NDC counterparts in Ghana suffered defeat in the hands of incumbent President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo.
The 2020 election results came to an end the 8-year parallel the NDC and Democrats on the one hand and the Republicans and NPP on the other enjoyed at the elections since 1992.
That election would have also brought my comparison of the two countries to a sudden end but the electoral system and cycle of the two countries appear to have an unexplained love for each other.
In the election 2024, the sitting vice president in Ghana, Mahamudu Bawumia is the Presidential candidate in the December elections. Because the two countries appear to mirror each other, your guess would be as good as mine. The governing party in the US had chosen the sitting president Joe Biden to represent them in this year’s election, but in a surprising turn of events, they removed that Presidential candidate and settled on their sitting Vice President, as if to mirror the picture in Ghana.
This new turn of events is a clear playback of the election of 2000 (24 years ago) when the two sitting Vice Presidents at the time were the candidates for that election. So here again, we have another interesting parallel with a historic antecedent to watch.
Now, although the Vice President in Ghana is not necessarily tying his campaign to the victory or otherwise of the Vice President in the US like happened in 2008, if voters in the two countries suddenly decide to go back to their ‘notes-sharing’ era, what happens on November 5 in the US may well repeat itself in Ghana.
This has happened so many times in the past that if the trends are anything to go by albeit unrelated, one cannot rule out the high possibility. One thing is certain: if Kamala Harris wins in the US, Bawumia supporters would tell Ghanaian voters to take a cue and also vote for the sitting Vice President.
If Kamala Harris loses, however, it would serve as a good campaign message, although it may not be as pronounced, for the opposition party in Ghana. I can bet my December salary on the fact that many an NDC campaigner would say: Look, the Vice President in the US has lost. Let us do the same in December too.
But that is not the only interesting comparison between the two elections. In Ghana, the opposition is presenting a former President, John Mahama to Ghanaians once again. He had served as President for one term and is seeking to complete the Constitutional 8-year term.
In the US, the opposition party is also presenting a former President, Donald Trump to voters once again. He, like John Mahama in Ghana, is also seeking to complete his 8-year term. Impossible right?
And oh. The current Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament, Alban Bagbin is from the opposition party. You don’t need to guess. The current Speaker of the US Congress, Mike Johnson is from the opposition party too.
So on the face of it: US voters, just like Ghanaian voters, have an option between a former President and a sitting Vice President. The only difference of course, is that the Vice President in Ghana is a male while the one in the US is a female.
This may not be scientific, but whatever happens in the US on November 5 may well be the shadows of the coming events in Ghana on December 7. It may not have a scientific basis, but heck, it makes for an exciting conversation.
Whether your date is Tuesday, November 5 or Saturday, December 7, Go out and vote to become a part of this historic moment!
By: Umaru Sanda Amadu, the host of Eyewitness News on Citi FM and Face to Face on Channel One TV
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