I know that this has been a little while in coming, but, as of January 7th, 2008, Ghana has a new President: Professor John Evans Atta Mills of the National Democratic Congress. Mills was the Vice-president under President J.J. Rawlings during the 1990’s and was the challenging candidate in this most recent election. Throughout the election, most polls showed him to be trailing, but still close. After a first round that saw no candidate obtain the necessary “50% plus 1” majority needed to win the election, a second round run-off was needed to determine a winner. In a very closely contested run-off, Mills was able to just barely squeeze out a victory over the incumbent party candidate. The official election results were announced on Saturday, January 3rd and Mills was inaugurated 4 days later.
All in all the election went well. I believe that many people are happy with the outcome and those that are not thrilled still want what is best for Ghana. Most importantly, the election was, for the most part, peaceful. Although the process was long and challenging (nearly a month from the first election day until the winner was announced) Ghanaians successfully rose to the challenges of democracy.
With that said, on December 30, two days after the run-off election, the results were supposed to be declared by the Electoral Commission at noon (in actuality, they were not officially declared until January 4th). I heard a rumor that morning that a large group of people had gathered outside of the EC waiting to hear the results. Myself, and a few other people from Accra Girls’ went down to the EC to see what was happening. When we got there we saw a huge crowd of thousands of people, all NDC and Mills supporters, blocking the streets and celebrating what they thought would an NDC victory. It was a cool thing to see so many people out and exercising their democratic rights. However, it was not quite what I have seen in the states. Many people were carrying bricks and two-by-fours. Ironically, some of these same people were also running around yelling “Peace! We want peace!”. As we were walking through the crowd, you could see hundreds of army officials and police in full riot gear with humvees, tear gas canisters, and fully automatic weapons. At one point a man drove through the crowd and made a gesture showing support for the NPP, the incumbent party and the crowd chased after the car, caught it and jumped on it and beat on it in a gas station parking lot. The man got away but the mayhem changed gears and the crowd tried to loot the gas station. As I was watching all of this a man ran in front of me holding a brick, saw me and yelled “This African Democracy, man! This African Democracy!”. Within a few minutes a huge van showed up and 15 or so police in riot gear jump out and subdued the crowd nonviolently.
The results announcement did not come at 12. (They did not come at 2 or 4 either, as rumor had it, but finally around 5:30 an announcement was made that the results would not come out until Saturday the 4th.) While waiting, we decided to go to a local radio station, RadioGold, that supports the NDC party and Mills. When we got there we saw a sea of people even bigger than at the EC and even more police…and a lot more tension in the air. The story was that a rumor had gone around that NPP members were going to show up at RadioGold to shut them down because the radio station is pro-NDC. Many NDC supporters would not stand for that so they went to protect the radio station. When the police heard that there may be a conflict, they sent troops. When the troops arrived, the NDC supporters assumed that they were sent by the NPP run government to shut down RadioGold as well, so the NDC supporters would not let the police enter the radio station. The people, again carrying two-by-fours, bricks, and other homemade weapons surrounded RadioGold and made a human wall, barring the police from entering the radio station! As I walked around and took pictures, one man came up to me and told me “Tell your people what is happening here.” I am not sure what exactly he meant by that, but I said yes, and took his picture. This went on all afternoon until, finally, the police left. When we left, there was still a lot of tension I the air, but it had been peaceful.
Being able to witness democracy here in Ghana is a truly unique experience, very different than the US, but, when it was all said and done, it was a relatively peaceful election that should help the people of Ghana.
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