Ghana’s political evolution from 1957 to 2008 (March 6, 2009)

IN the period of African colonial struggle, Ghana was no doubt the beacon of hope, the first colony to achieve independence in 1957. Since 1957 when Ghana attained independence from the paws of her colonial masters, Great Britain, it has chalked up many successes in her stride to consolidate democracy.
Since then, Ghana has had four republics and the experiences of the 2008 elections particularly has helped to cement Ghana’s image as a maturing democracy. Indeed, under the Fourth Republic, Ghana has held five consecutive national elections and had seen two peaceful transitions from one democratically elected government to another.
What is also very engaging is the use of the courts, and not violence, to settle electoral disputes.
However, efforts to strengthen the pillars of democracy in Ghana have not come easily as it has encountered many military insurrections.
Returning to the Gold Coast in 1949, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, arguably the nation’s most influential figure, found that India's independence had set in motion a process of gradual transfer of power in Britain's other colonies.
He first joined the existing political movement, the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), which he left after some misunderstanding with his colleagues. With several associates he later set up a new party, the Convention People's Party (CPP), and in the process demonstrated his supreme organisational abilities. Within two years the CPP had won limited self-rule,in elections, and Nkrumah became Leader of Government Business, a de facto prime minister responsible for internal government and policy.
He set his sights firmly on independence. No amount of autonomy or self-rule, he argued, could match the energy, commitment, and focus of a government and people in a truly independent country. It was a precondition for growth. He summarised his philosophy in a slogan that became famous and influential across Africa: "Seek ye first the political kingdom, and all else shall be added unto you...."
Nkrumah’s views were hardening, reflecting an increasing attraction to "scientific socialism" and a mounting preoccupation with control. Already in 1960 he had made Ghana a republic and proclaimed himself its president.
On February 24, 1966, as he stopped in Burma on his way to China at the start of a grand tour aimed at solving the Vietnam conflict, army officers back home in Ghana intervened and took over power.
The group that organised the coup formed the National Liberation Council (NLC) with Lieut. Gen J.A. Ankrah as the Chairman. Nkrumah did not hear of the coup until he arrived in China.
Nkrumah ended up in exile in Guinea, where another experiment in "African socialism" was in progress. Guinea's President, Sekou Toure, a close friend of the deposed Ghanaian leader, gave Nkrumah the title "Co-president." Nkrumah made regular short-wave broadcasts to Ghana, published ideological treatises, and plotted a triumphal return to power until he grew ill and died in 1972, still in exile.
After the overthrow of Nkrumah, the coup makers ruled for over two years and arranged for an election which was won by Professor Kofi Abrefa Busia’s Progress Party (PP).
Professor Kofi Abrefa Busia who was born on July 11,1913 and died in August 28, 1978, was Prime Minister of Ghana from 1969 to 1972.
As leader of the opposition against Nkrumah, he fled the country on the grounds that his life was under threat. He later became a Professor of Sociology and Culture at the University of Leiden in the Hague, Netherlands.
He returned to Ghana in March 1966 after Kwame Nkrumah’s government was overthrown by the military, and was appointed as the Chairman of the National Advisory Committee of the NLC. In 1967/1968 he served as the Chairman of the Centre for Civic Education. He used this opportunity and sold himself as the next leader. He was also a Member of the Constitutional Review Committee. When the NLC lifted the ban on politics, Busia, together with friends in the defunct UP formed the Progress Party (PP).
In 1969, PP won the parliamentary elections with 104 of the 105 seats contested. This paved the way for him to become the next Prime Minister with Mr Justice Edward Akufo-Addo, a former Chief Justice, as a ceremonial President. Busia continued with NLC's anti-Nkrumaist stance and adopted a liberalised economic system. There was a mass deportation of half a million Nigerian citizens from Ghana, and a 44 per cent devaluation of the cedi in 1971 which met with a lot of resistance from the public.
While in Britain for a medical check-up, the army under Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong overthrew his government on January 13, 1972. He died from a heart attack in 1978.
After the overthrow of the Busia regime in 1972, Ghana went through a long period of military rule. The National Redemption Council (NRC) which overthrew Busia later became the Supreme Military Council One (SMC I), all under Gen Kutu Acheampong and later SMC II under Gen F.W.K Akuffo. On June 4, 1979, Flt Lt J. J. Rawlings’ Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) overthrew the government of the SMC II.
In an election supervised by the AFRC after three months in office, an Nkrumaist party, the People National Party (PNP) won, and formed the next government with Dr Hilla Limann as the president.
Dr Limann, a Career Diplomat, was born at Gwollu in the Upper Region in 1934 to Mr Limann, and Madam Hayaba.
Dr Limann was elected the presidential candidate of the People's National Party (PNP), the successor of the CPP, for the 1979 elections.
He polled 631,559 votes (35.32 per cent) in the June 18 elections to beat nine other candidates. He went into a run-off with Mr Victor Owusu, the Popular Front Party (PFP) candidate who had 533,928 (29.86 per cent) of the votes.
During the second round in July 1979, Dr Limann convincingly beat Mr Owusu to be elected president of the third republic. He was sworn into office on September 24, 1979, and took over from Flt Lt Rawlings and the AFRC.
He was plagued by internal squabbles in the party leading to his overthrow by Flt Lt Rawlings on December 31, 1981. Dr Limann formed the People's National Convention (PNC) to contest the 1992 elections when the ban on political activities was lifted. He came a distant third to President Rawlings of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and Professor Albert Adu Boahen of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Dr Limann stepped down for Dr Edward Mahama as the presidential candidate of the party during the 1996 polls. Dr Hilla Limann died at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in 1998.
Limann's administration was cut short on December 31, 1981, when Rawlings deposed him in another coup. The Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), composed of both civilian and military members, was established with Rawlings as Chairman.
In his second tenure in power, Rawlings’ policies became more centrist, and he began to advocate free-market reforms. However, despite the country's economic success, the Ghanaian government was criticised both at home and abroad for committing numerous abuses of human rights.
Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings who was born on June 22, 1947 in Accra, was twice the head of state of Ghana and was the 1st President of the Fourth Republic. He first appeared on the Ghanaian political scene on May 15, 1979 when he led a group of junior officers in the Ghana Air Force in an unsuccessful coup d'état that resulted in his arrest and imprisonment. He was court-martialled in public and sentenced to death.
Due to his display of patriotism in his defence speeches, he was widely seen across the country as a true son of Ghana, and was nicknamed Junior Jesus for his initials "JJ". Before he could be executed, another group of junior officers within the Ghana Army led by Major Boakye-Djan, overthrew the then military government of Lieutenant General Fred Akuffo in a bloody coup on June 4, 1979. Major Boakye-Djan and his men also set Rawlings free from prison, and installed him as head of the new government — the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC).
At the time of the coup, Ghana was already far into the process of returning to civilian rule and general elections were already scheduled. Hence, the AFRC went ahead to conduct an election and handed over power to Dr Hilla Limann who won the popular vote in the election to establish the Third Republic.
Less than two years later, Dr Limann's civilian and constitutional government was overthrown again by Jerry Rawlings on December 31, 1981. He then installed the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) regime.
In all Jerry Rawlings performed three coups d’etat in Ghana, two of which were successful.
In the early 1990s internal pressures led by a group identified with the Danquah-Busia tradition coupled with external pressures from Ghana's development partners forced the PNDC government to adopt constitutional rule. Citizens began demanding a more democratic form of government as the 1990s progressed.
Rawlings answered this demand by forming a National Commission for Democracy (NCD), empowered to hold regional debates and formulate some suggestions for a transition to multi-party democracy. Although opposition groups complained that the NCD was too closely associated with the PNDC, the commission continued its work through 1991.
In March of that year the NCD released a report recommending the election of an executive president, the establishment of a national assembly, and the creation of a prime minister post. The PNDC accepted the report, and the following year it was approved in a national referendum. Political parties were legalised with the provision that none could use names that had been used before, and a timetable was set for presidential and parliamentary elections.
Rawlings on many platforms professed his dislike for multiparty democracy, saying that it was alien to the Ghanaian people. But as elections drew near, he switched from being a military Head of State, retired from the Ghana Armed Forces on September 14, 1992, then ran and won in the late 1992 elections which the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) claimed was a stolen verdict although international observers judged the elections largely free and fair.
After two terms in office, barred by the constitution from standing in any election, he nominated his vice-president, Professor John Evans Atta Mills, as his choice to replace him as President. Ghanaians rejected his choice in the 2000 election by voting for the opposition NPP's candidate, John Kufuor.
Per constitutional mandate, Rawlings’ term of office ended in 2001; he retired in 2001 and was succeeded by Mr John Agyekum Kufuor, his main opponent in the 1996 elections. Kufuor succeeded in defeating Rawlings’ vice-president and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate, Professor John Evans Atta Mills, in the 2000 vote, and did so again in 2004.
Mr John Agyekum Kufuor was born on December 8, 1938 in Kumasi, Ghana.
Mr Kufuor’s public service spans over thirty years. In 1967, he was appointed Chief Legal Officer and Town Clerk (City Manager) of Kumasi. He was a member of the 1968-69 and the 1979 Constituent Assemblies that drafted the Constitutions of the Second and Third Republics respectively. In addition he was a Founding Member of the Progress Party (PP) in 1969, the Popular Front Party (PFP) in 1979 and is a Founding Member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). He has twice been elected as a Member of Parliament during the Second and Third Republics. He has also been in political detention on two occasions as a result of military coups that overthrew the Second and Third Republics. He has been a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and in this capacity, he represented Ghana on several occasions.
As the Spokesman on Foreign Affairs and Deputy Opposition Leader of the Popular Front Party (PFP) Parliamentary Group during the Third Republic, he was invited to accompany President Limann to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Summit Conference in Freetown, Sierra Leone. He was also a member of the Parliamentary Delegation that visited the United States of America (USA) in 1981 to talk to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank on Ghana's economic problems.
Reports have it that in January, 1982, the leadership of the All People's Party (APP), which was an alliance of all the opposition parties, advised some leading members, including the Deputy Leader of the alliance, Alhaji Iddrisu Mahama, the General Secretary, Dr Obed Asamoah and Mr J. A. Kufuor to accept an invitation from the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) to serve in what was purported to be a national government. Mr Kufuor was appointed the Secretary for Local Government in this new government. As a Secretary for Local Government, he authored the Local Government Policy Guidelines that were to be the foundation of the current decentralised District Assemblies. He, however, resigned within seven months of acceptance of the position.
Mr J. A Kufuor won the presidential elections for the first time in December, 2000 and was sworn in as president on January 9, 2001. When he stood for the second time, he won for another four year term as permitted by the constitution.
He was succeded by the NDC presidential candidate, Professor John Evans Atta Mills, who won the Presidential run-off on Sunday, December 28, 2008. He defeated the NPP Presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in a keenly contested election that was full of suspense, tension and fear of the unknown.
Born on July 21, 1944 at Tarkwa in the Western Region, he hails from Ekumfi Otuam in the Mfantsiman East Constituency of the Central Region, Prof Mills on January 7, 1997 was sworn-in as the Vice President of Ghana.
In the year 2002, he was elected unopposed by the NDC to be its flag bearer and led the party into the 2004 election. Having lost that election, he was re-elected in December 2006 by an overwhelming 81.4 per cent, beating three other contestants, to lead NDC into the 2008 General election, which he won by 50.29 per cent.
He was sworn into office on January 7, 2009, and has since formed his cabinet with a pledge to hit the road running, eschew corruption in all its form and become a father of all.
As the world keep watching the democratic experimentation unfolding in Ghana, it is believed that every effort will be made by all Ghanaians including the government, political parties, civil society, academia and the media not to destroy the gains that have taken so many years and decades to nurture. One of democracy’s best shows is organising successful elections with the media enjoying front row seats. This is what it is hoped will prevail in Ghana for a long time to come.