GHANA ELECTIONS: A GATHERING STORM?

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 06 ACCRA 001420

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR AF/W

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/22/2018
TAGS: GH KDEM PGOV PHUM PINS PREL
SUBJECT: GHANA ELECTIONS: A GATHERING STORM?

REF: A. A. ACCRA 1048
Q B. B. ACCRA 1360

Classified By: POL:GPERGL


1. (C) SUMMARY. Ghana's political campaign has become
increasingly strident, with the main opposition National
Democratic Congress (NDC) party accusing the ruling New
Patriotic Party (NPP) of unbridled corruption, involvement
in narcotics trafficking, and the development of a
sophisticated
strategy to steal the election. The NPP for its part is
planting
seeds of distrust among the electorate, saying openly that
Ghana's democracy is in danger as long as the "revolutionary
wing
of the NDC" (Read: Jerry Rawlings) continues to have
significant
influence in the party. The ruling party has also expressed
its
concern that the NDC will not accept the outcome of the
election,
inferring that the opposition is already laying the
groundwork to
dispute the election results so that it can resort to
violence in
the face of an election loss. Both parties view the election
as
a potentially do-or-die event with their futures in the
breach.
Both parties also have a deeply held conviction that they
will
win, even in the absence of reliable polling data that might
attune them to their true strength and prepare them for the
possibility of defeat. It should not be surprising that
tensions
are rising between the major contenders who view themselves
as so
close to power that they can prevail by manipulating the
electorate, the process, and public perceptions by just a
little
bit. Despite this, Ghana's non-violent culture and its
political
history suggest that widespread civil insurrection is very
unlikely, and the Embassy is convinced that sufficient
structural
regulations are in place to assure a free and fair election.
END
SUMMARY.


2. (U) The 2008 election in Ghana is shaping up to be the
most acrimonious and bitterly contested in the nation's
history.
Since the founding of Ghana's fourth republic in 1992, the
nation
has held four presidential elections, with a first-ever
peaceful
transfer of power from one party to another taking place in
the
2000 election. Despite some irregularities, all those
elections
were proclaimed generally free and fair, and parties and
voters
in each case accepted the results.


3. (C) The 2008 contest is the first in which no incumbent
president or vice president is running, and the stakes are
particularly high for both major parties. The NPP has a
visceral
fear and hatred of the NDC, stemming from days when that
party's
predecessor jailed and exiled its founding fathers. The
party
may also be troubled by the prospect of an NDC government
conducting investigations into NPP corruption during the
Kufuor
administration. The paranoia over the re-ascendency of the
NDC's
populist patriarch Jerry Rawlings (President of Ghana, 1992-
2000),whom the Kufuor government constantly surveils, has
continued unabated.


4. (C) On the other hand, the NDC sees this election as a
make-or-break watershed event. Failure to gain power at
this juncture could prove to be the death knell of the
party, inducing a significant portion of its supporters to
defect to other parties, including the emerging Convention
Peoples Party (CPP),which is perceived to be gaining
considerable ground under the canny campaign of its
flag-bearer, Paa Kwesi Nduom. The NDC further asserts that

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the Kufuor government has used "fast-track" courts and
legislation covering "willful cause of loss to the state"
selectively against its political opponents. A
particularly egregious example of selective prosecution
occurred just this week when an NDC parliamentary candidate
was sentenced to 12 months hard labor for registering twice
to vote. "Fast-track" indeed: the candidate was
arrested October 27, tried and convicted the next day, and
was carrying out his sentence on October 29. Both NDC and
NPP
officials may feel vulnerable to similar efforts in the
future.
More than anything, the NDC fears that four more years of NPP
power will inevitably lead to an NPP dynasty with tentacles
so entrenched in all areas of governance that it will be
impossible for any party to unseat it in the future. The
discovery of significant amounts of offshore oil and the
perception that the ruling party will have access to those
revenues have only heightened the stakes.

A VOLATILE ATMOSPHERE...


5. (SBU) The political campaign began to intensify with the
voter registration exercise, which was scheduled for May
but did not take place until late July. The process was
marred by incidents of partisan violence and accusations
from both parties of packing the voter register with
ineligible voters in party stronghold areas (reftel A).
The Electoral Commission (EC),an independent entity
responsible for all aspects of Ghanaian elections, has
been behind schedule for every critical deadline, leading
to accusations of foot-dragging and incompetence. Despite
its claim that the government has provided full funding for
its needs, the EC managed to procure only 2,500
workstations for 5,000 registration centers during the
registration period, and minority parties vehemently
protested that their areas of strength were shortchanged.
Attempts by the Electoral Commission (EC) to encourage the
scrubbing of voter rolls have been halfhearted and
unconvincing. As a result, the NDC harbors deep suspicions
about government interference and collusion with the EC,
and claims that the easiest way to steal an election is to
underfund the entity responsible for conducting elections.
(NOTE: This situation wasn't helped by the NPP's luck in
drawing the coveted first spot on the ballot earlier this
week in a random number drawing amongst the 7 parties
fielding presidential candidates. END NOTE.)


6. (SBU) Other factors have led to a sense of anxiety
surrounding the elections. Unresolved ethnic conflicts are
spilling over to partisan politics. In the northern
District of Yendi, where a chieftancy dispute resulted in
the vicious murder of the Dagbon king and 40 of his Andani
subjects in 2002, the NDC has taken up the cause of the
Andanis, while the NPP now supports the rival Abudus. This
politicization of ethnic and chieftancy conflicts has been
replicated in other troubled parts of Ghana (Tamale,
Gushiegu, and the Ga traditional areas),encouraging
hardened factions to tie their fortunes to the fate of a
political party. The possibility of these smoldering
conflicts being re-ignited by blocs who have been waiting
for their party to come to power in order to even scores is
further cause for worry.


7. (C) The specter of so-called monetization of
elections--the sense that Ghana's democracy can be
delivered to the highest bidder--further adds to
pre-election unease. It is a given that the NPP has the
ability to blow away its rivals in election spending. In
addition, it has the advantage of incumbency, giving it
superior access to state resources, particularly at the
district
level. (The NPP presidential aspirant is the only candidate
who
moves around the country with dispatch riders and police
escorts.) State media organs do give space to opposition
candidates, but tout government spending projects in a manner
that pushes the envelope of neutrality. (NOTE: A USG-funded
code of conduct for state media is helping to address this.
END
NOTE.) Billboards depicting NPP government achievements are
cropping up all over Accra, presumably funded by the state.


...AND A PERVASIVE ENVIRONMENT OF MUTUAL SUSPICION


8. (C) Poloff met recently with Alban Bagbin, the minority
leader in Parliament, who laid down a stunning indictment
of NPP tactics. He accused the NPP of wholesale bribery of
large parts of the electorate, saying that "they are taking

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millions of Cedis to NDC strongholds and buying the voter
ID cards of likely NDC supporters." He accused the NPP and
Kufuor administration of having strong ties to and reaping
millions of dollars from narcotics traffickers who have
extensive networks in Ghana that include members of
Parliament, deputy ministers, and high ranking police
officials. He said that NPP candidate Nana Dankwa
Akufo-Addo is well-known to be a cocaine user himself, who
has "supposedly stopped, but I don't believe that."


9. (C) Hanna Tetteh, the NDC's communications director,
gave Poloff a document that the NDC purports to be from the
minutes of an NPP meeting in which the ruling party details
its plans to rig the election in collaboration with a
complicit Electoral Commission (reftel B). Impossible to
authenticate, and roundly rejected by the NPP as "lies and
insults," the document's purported strategies are:
-- furnishing all party offices with heavy duty color
printers to reproduce EC ballots and pre-stuffing them into
fake ballot boxes to be switched in selected polling
stations where favorable and selected police personnel will
be stationed. (NOTE: In Embassy's opinion, switching ballot
boxes would be difficult without the complicity of the
NDC's polling agents. Because the NDC believes that many
of its polling agents were bribed by the NPP in 2004, one
of their key strategies has been to carefully select and
train hardcore party loyalists to serve as polling agents.
END NOTE);
-- sending a special ink for marking ballots in polling
places in NDC strongholds. The ink, which does not dry
quickly, would cause the thumbprints used by voters to mark
their ballots to smear when folded and placed in the ballot
box, thus spoiling the ballot. NPP polling agents would
insist that the EC's presiding officer invalidate those
ballots;
-- Preparing fake ballot boxes stuffed with NDC ballots and
parading them out to the media at hastily arranged press
conferences to indicate NDC attempts at fraud;
-- calling for loyalist members of Parliament and District
Chief Executives to reduce the number of buses operating in
NDC strongholds on election day.


10. (C) For its part, the NPP has accused the NDC of
deliberately spreading untrue rumors of its collusion with
the Electoral Committee and of creating a false sense of
alarm with "ceaseless talk of following the examples of
Kenya and Zimbabwe." The party has also spread the word
that Rawlings was pulling together members of the infamous
64th Battalion (the elite corps of commandos trained in
Cuba to become Rawlings' armed bodyguards after the coup of
1981) to serve as polling agents and provocateurs in key
districts. Another rumor of NDC cadres being trained in
Libya to disrupt the elections was circulating a few months
ago.


MEET THE CANDIDATES


11. (C) Despite party platforms that tend to blur into one
another, Ghanaians are being presented with a clear choice
in terms of the personalities of the major party
candidates. The NPP's Akufo-Addo can best be described as
a patrician's patrician, a member not only of the dominant
Akans, but also an Akyem, an ethnic group that tends to
consider itself a rung above the bluest of bluebloods. He
is the scion of a political family of considerable renown,
and his father was Chief Justice of the Ghana Supreme Court
and President of Ghana from 1970-72. Akufo-Addo earned
degrees in economics and law in England and Ghana, and
began practicing law in Accra in 1979. He became active in
human rights and political causes during the Rawlings
years, and joined the NPP in 1992. He was the principal
author of "The Stolen Verdict," a 1993 NPP political tract
that brought about numerous election reforms. Elected to
Parliament in 1996, he became an outspoken critic of the
RawlingQgovernment. After failing to gain the NPP's
nomination in 2000, he strongly supported John Kufuor's
candidacy, and was rewarded with the post of Attorney
General and Minister of Justice, a perfect platform for him
to pursue investigations and prosecutions of Rawlings-era
corruption. He became Foreign Minister in the second
Kufuor administration, where he remained until resigning to
pursue election as president in 2007.


12. (C) Akufo-Addo is a man who feels that his time has
come. While disappointed over losing the party nod to
Kufuor in 2000, he waited patiently for 8 years, and then
fended off a strong primary challenge from Alan Kyerematen,
who had Kufuor's overt support. (NOTE: Kyerematen, a former
Minister of Trade and Industry and Ghana's ambassador to

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the US from 2001-2003, is now known everywhere in Ghana as
"Alan Cash" in reference to the large sums of money he
handed out during the primary campaign. After losing the
primaries, he quit the party in a fit of pique, but like
many other primary contenders, he was wooed back by
Akufo-Addo and now plays a major role in the campaign. END
NOTE) Akufo-Addo talks about the "big weight of history on
my shoulders," and in watching his performance as a
candidate, one is struck by a strong sense of entitlement,
as though he can hardly imagine Ghanaians having the poor
judgment to elect anyone besides him. He has mostly healed
the inevitable party rifts caused by a primary contested by
nearly a dozen NPP heavy hitters, and has amassed campaign
funds that far outpace the competition. Full page ads for
Akufo-Addo appear almost daily in the major newspapers, and
half-hour specials labeled "Nana's Diary" grace the
primetime airwaves at least twice a week. His smiling and
bespectacled countenance radiates down from dozens of
gargantuan billboards that have sprouted up all over Accra.
(NOTE: A Lebanese businessman who owns many of Accra's
billboards told the Ambassador recently that he is not paid
for most of the billboards for the two major parties. END
NOTE.) Akufo-Addo is a gifted orator, but has a hard time
connecting with the common man. He engages on the issues,
but speaks in terms of macro-economic growth, annual 6%
increases in GDP, the effect on Ghana of instability in
world markets, and infrastructure development. Although he
is often seen drawing large numbers of supporters at
campaign stops around the country, he can't escape
persistant rumors that they are rent-a-crowds.


13. (C) Like Akufo-Addo, John Evans Atta-Mills, the
opposition NDC candidate, obtained degrees in economics and
law in England. He then lectured at the University of
Ghana for 25 years, and is always referred to as "Prof."
Atta-Mills became Commissioner of the Internal Revenue
Service in 1988, and used that unlikely springboard to
enter politics and serve as Jerry Rawlings vice president
from 1996 to 2000. Atta-Mills is making his third
consecutive run for the presidency--not usually a recipe
for success. A party insider told Poloff that
Atta-Mills had won the nomination from a reluctant but
destitute party whose only choice was to field a candidate
with instant name and face recognition. His polling
numbers in the past two elections were a respectable 44%,
and this time around, the NDC seems convinced that
dissatisfaction with the NPP will turn Atta-Mills into a
winner.


14. (C) Although he is not an exciting campaigner,
Atta-Mills still manages to draw large crowds of
enthusiastic supporters, even during his campaign
swing through the NPP's stronghold Ashanti Region. Mills
campaigns on a populist platform of "prosperity for all,"
with a
strong emphasis on the "all." He hammers away at what he
characterizes as Ghana's high level of unemployment,
corruption,
declining living standards for the masses, and the gap
between
the urban haves and the rural have-nots. Strapped for cash,
Atta-Mills has opted for a retail campaign strategy that
puts him in a car and plies him from town to town in
regions with large numbers of swing voters. He has
concentrated his efforts in the Western and Central
regions, while his well-respected running mate John Mahama
takes the same style campaign to the Brong-Ahafo, Eastern,
and Northern regions where his popularity is greatest. The
party's grassroots organization has been re-energized, and
Atta-Mills' strategy appears to be paying political dividends.
In recent weeks he has stepped up his attacks on the Kufuor
administration, and his bold assertions of
pervasive administration corruption (see para 17) have
drawn a sharp rebuke and a threat of retaliation in the
courts from the usually reticent President.

THE RAWLINGS FACTOR


15. (C) Former President Jerry Rawlings has been a key
player in the NDC campaign, a larger than life presence
whose populist touch and bombast rouse crowds that reach
beyond the party faithful. NDC communications director
Tetteh told Poloff that Rawlings was "a blessing and a
curse," vital to the cause for his charismatic appeal, but
equally risky as a loose cannon who sometimes loses sight
of his role. Despite such misgivings, the NDC has happily
unleashed Rawlings as the attack dog on the current
administration's shortcomings. Rawlings' high profile leads
some to believe that he would play a key policy role in an
Atta-Mills government, but his party rejects that assertion.

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"Rawlings realizes his political days are
over," Tetteh said, "and the party has definitely moved
beyond him, but managing him is still a challenge."
Akufo-Addo constantly reminds the electorate of the
authoritarian Rawlings years, labeling the NDC as a party
with a non-democratic tradition. Insinuating that
Atta-Mills is Rawlings' puppet, he holds that democracy is
not safe in NDC hands. Speaking to the diplomatic corps
last week, he said "Ghanaians are pondering whether a vote
for Professor Mills is indeed a vote for him or someone
else. Will a President Mills be his own man?"

IT'S THE CORRUPTION, STUPID

16.(C) Perceptions often win elections, and the image in
the public mind of ministers feeding at the government
trough while the common man suffers may become the key
factor in this contest. Corruption has deep roots in the
Ghanaian political culture, and to a large degree, society
accepts and expects patronage and largesse as part and
parcel of an office-holder's prerogatives. A powerful
executive branch with little oversight or regulation, low
remuneration for civil servants and security agencies,
opacity in the procurement process, and a prevailing sense
of official impunity all create a system that is hospitable
to corruption. While President Kufuor loudly trumpeted
zero-tolerance for corruption upon taking office in 2000,
those horns have been quieter in his second term. Even in
the absence of a smoking gun, in the waning months of the
administration, many believe that officials are stuffing
their pockets before the train leaves
the station. A Lebanese businessman with strong ties to
the administration told Poloff last week that "you no
longer can go to a minister and speak in terms of five
figures. If you aren't offering six figures, they don't
want to see you."


17. (C) The government is a major player in business in
Ghana, and it dominates many spheres of economic activity.
Those points of contact where the public and private
sectors come together are the areas most susceptible to
corruption. The NDC continues to make allegations of the
government's complicity in this arena, questioning the
final disposition of funds from the sale of Ghana Telecom
to Vodafone in August for $900 million, asserting that
several prominent NPP members have stashed millions of
dollars in foreign banks, and suggesting (in the Weekly
Standard, which is published by a former Rawlings aide)
that Kufuor owes $5 billion to an unnamed group of Kuwaiti
oil suppliers. While the assertion regarding Kufuor sounds
absurd, the accusations resonate with at least parts of the
electorate.

WHITHER THE ELECTION?


18. (C) A chorus of informed and impartial observers, NGOs,
and think tanks has recently raised the alarm over the
disturbing trends they are seeing as the election draws
near. All of the minority oposition parties came together
at a Council of State function last week and roundly
condemned the two major parties for fomenting tension in
the country and increasing the electorate's anxiety. On
October 27, the Center for Democratic Development, a
respected think tank that closely monitors the election
(with a USAID grant),summoned the diplomatic corps and
other development partners to an "emergency meeting." At
this session, the CDD's director said that his previous
optimism for free and fair elections has been significantly
challenged by the trends his organization sees in the
campaigns of the two major political parties and the
complacency of the Electoral Commission. He cited a litany
of emerging flashpoints that included the bloated voter
register, NDC distrust of the Electoral Commission's bona
fides, government failures to prosecute officials accused
of corruption, and State inaction in settling unresolved
ethnic conflict. The primary concern of the CDD panel
stemmed from the expressed contention of most opposition
parties that the security agencies, the judiciary, the
media, and large segments of civil society could not be
trusted. In essence, they said, this means that every
potential party with a role in adjudicating election
results is suspected of complicity. The panel also
expressed their shared apprehension that the security
forces were not equipped to deal with multiple instances of
civil unrest on election day.


19. (C) Compare and contrast this gloomy scenario with the
sense of serenity that the Ambassador found just two hours
later in the quiet confines of the Electoral Commission
during a call on Chairman Kwado Afari-Gyan. When asked

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about the ongoing debate over registration irregularities,
perceptions of EC failings, and the imperfect exercise to
cleanse voter rolls, Afari-Gyan dismissed all of these
problems out of hand, promising that there would be
absolutely no troubles come election day. He claimed that
the case of discrepancies in voter registration in the
Ashanti region (wherein 13 constituencies posted gains of
more than 100% in 2 years) had been caused by a mere
computer error, an allegation that the NDC disputes and
that the embassy finds implausible given the evidence at
hand. When told that the Embassy's LES political assistant
had visited several District Electoral Commissions in the
Brong-Ahafo and Northern regions and had been told that the
EC had been delinquent in making payments for salaries and
fuel, Afari-Gyan disputed the information, saying that
everyone was being paid on time and that the EC was fully
funding all operations. (NOTE: Embassy political assistant
calls that claim patently false. END NOTE). Finally, the
Chairman said that the voter exhibition and cleansing had
gone extremely well, and that the EC was completely
satisfied with the state of the register. Once again, this
does not jibe with media reports or observations from
independent election observers. Afari-Gyan's assurances of
a trouble-free election beg the question of whether the EC
knows something that the masses outside its gates do not,
or whether he has simply declared his office a reality-free
zone. If he does know something the public does not, he must
work to increase public confidence in the electoral process.


20. (C) In the absence of reliable polling data that might
help attune them to their true strength and prepare them
for the possibility of defeat, both major parties are
convinced that they will prevail. This does not appear to
be partisan posturing, but rather a deeply held
conviction. Both also view the election as a potentially
do-or-die event, with their futures in the breach. As
such, it should not be surprising that tensions are rising
between the major contenders who view themselves as so
close to power that they can prevail by manipulating the
electorate, the process, and public perceptions by just a
little bit. The Chairman of the EC asserted that both
parties are involved in electoral "mischief" in their
strongholds, particularly voter intimidation.


21. (C) As they continue down the road of political
brinksmanship,
it appears that at least elements of the two major parties
are
willing to take greater risks with future stability in order
to
control the levers of power. We hear some politicians, for
example, making vague references to power sharing in Kenya
and
declaring that a loss would be "unacceptable." Post
believes,
however, that even if a Ghanaian political party rejects the
democratic process, few Ghanaians will follow. Ghana's non-
violent culture and political history suggest that
widespread civil insurrection is very unlikely, and the
Embassy is convinced that sufficient structural regulations
are in place to assure a free and fair election.


21. Ambassador and other Embassy officials continue to
send out the same message to all parties: the United States
is neutral in this election; we expect all parties to play
by the rules in a process that is free, fair, and
transparent; any challenges to the results should be
pursued through the judicial system; as long as the
elections are free and fair, the victor can be assured of
continued US good will and cooperation; and any call for a
power-sharing arrangement would not be well-received by the
United States and would not be in Ghana's best interests.

TEITELBAUM