A new year and a new government are here!
This is my first appearance in this new year so a happy new year is in order to my readers. It is also a year that follows a general election the previous December, we usher in a new President with his new government and a new Parliament. This is the stuff of our national life as mandated by the 1992 Fourth Republican Constitution, thus making this style of governing ourselves the most enduring so far in our political history since independence in March 1957.
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I began this column today with a so-called quotation from the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. I say so-called because these days, statements and remarks are attributed to people without proof giving the ubiquity of social media and the urge by all users to post something original and arresting to other users. Social media, has, therefore, effectively replaced the old habit of people manufacturing entire diaries, quotations and sayings of important people in the past. As long as it agrees with some general longing, therefore, it must be true. So it is with the above.
Tomorrow, Saturday, January 7, 2017, our new President, Nana Akufo-Addo, would be sworn in to begin his term of office, having won the election in December 2016. The embarrassing defeat of President Mahama may be a cause of joy to those who wanted change and voted for his successor President Akufo-Addo but I daresay the reasons for this change will continue to haunt and exercise the thoughtful and reflective among us for years to come in this country.
At best, in my opinion, they are excuses ready at hand to be so deployed when the results were declared not ironclad reasons that will stand the test of time. I have already stated my reservations about the specific election results as not following any trend, no matter what one hears or reads.
For example, given the depth of the NPP electoral performance in the Central, Brong Ahafo and Northern regions, the party should have taken at the very least, another region to the four they usually win elections with, but they stuck to the four additional ones that President Kufuor won with in 2000 and 2004. Why? This needs explanation.
I have always used two elections in this country, 1956 and 1979 as the template and benchmarks to assist my understanding of all elections since 1951 in this country.
The question that must bother every Ghanaian voter is really simple, and effectively contradicted by the tsunami which is ushering in our new government tomorrow. If performance is not the decider in elections as in the provision of public goods, then what is? Or to put it another way, what will the President Akufo-Addo government campaign on for re-election in 2020?
Even the provision of the ephemeral and intangible concept of good governance is a public good, but our position today is a standing denial of anything. This is precisely the reason I consider the parroted reasons for the NPP victory to be mere excuses, a repetition of a worn narrative for our acceptance and agreement.
In fact and indeed, the victory of the NPP can be translated as a mandate to do nothing whilst in office, which would be a defeat of the purpose of victory and of the idea of government itself. An obvious question such as, would President Akufo-Addo perform better than President Kufuor would be irrelevant because it would necessarily require a comparison of records which voters obviously rejected as a guide to elections in last December.
This perspective on the meaning of the ballot has affected many in ways that borders on politically gaming the mind, to put it mildly. A doctor friend who had voted against President Mahama could not defend it on the grounds that the government had worsened health care or refused to provide better facilities for the provision of health care for our people, both translating to the improvement of working conditions for his profession.
This is dangerous because then we are on the cusp of mindless revolution. Those of us with a smattering of historical knowledge do remember that it was precisely at the point of reforms that revolutions occur, with evil effects on national progress. It happened with France before 1789 as some sanity was being introduced in imperial finances, in Russia as the Tsar gave considerable leeway in 1917 and in Germany in 1933 as it was escaping economic depression.
Our version happened in our own country in 1979 as we prepared for the Third Republic. That year, we had three separate governments, but it is the shortest one in duration, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, that sticks in the mind after all these years. Why? The effects were far-reaching indeed.
These days, the plainly hypocritical and dishonest among us argue forcefully that the abuse of judges is more a crime akin to the unfortunate kidnapping and murder of judges which happened in another military regime in 1982 when the execution of three heads of state in 1979 surpass any state-sanctioned political crime in our history. All of that in a matter of 10 days, June 16-26, 1979.
I cannot in all honesty, after these, hope that wishing our new government well in office, and a successful tenure by President Akufo-Addo, is the patriotic thing to expect and do because the marking scheme has been altered in a drastic way likely to affect the success of the new government more than previous governments. One takes consolation from the fact always denied by pundits everywhere, that all elections are unique, and do not follow any predetermined scheme of things.
There is the absolute necessity for a communications template that gives us all hope that public goods are what governments provide and are rewarded for in democratic dispensations.