… JJ overshadows JAM
… many people still remain desperately poor
ACCRA, 26 Nov 2004 (IRIN) – With less than two weeks to go before Ghanaians head to the ballot box, President John Kufuor is on course to win a second term as the opposition candidate struggles to emerge as his own man, analysts said on Friday.
Kufuor, of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), will face his main rival John Atta Mills of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and other minor candidates on 7 December. If no-one wins more than 50 percent of the vote, there will be a run-off but most commentators think that unlikely.
“He really has to do something very foolish or outrageous to lose. The election is his for the taking and my surveys indicate there will be only one round of polling,” said Ben Ephson, the editor of the privately-owned Dispatch newspaper, who has accurately predicted the last two elections.
Kwesi Jonah, a senior researcher at the Accra-based Institute of Economic Affairs, agreed.
“If everything goes well, the incumbent will be able to obtain 55 percent of the vote,” he told IRIN by phone.
Weighing against the opposition candidate are two crucial factors, analysts say.
Firstly Kufuor soundly beat Atta Mills in the last presidential election in 2000, and perhaps more importantly, Atta Mills has failed to emerge from the shadow of former NDC leader Jerry Rawlings, who dominated political life in Ghana for a generation.
A former air force officer known as “Junior Jesus” by his followers, Rawlings first came to power in a 1979 coup. He then ruled Ghana as head of state for most of the next 20 years.
He is a flamboyant and colourful character, in contrast to Atta Mills’ restrained intellectual style. But a commission set up by Kufuor to investigate human rights abuses committed by successive military governments in Ghana has focused strongly on wrongdoing committed during Rawlings’ era.
Rawlings served two successive terms as elected president in the 1990s, with Atta Mills, a former law professor, joining him as vice-president for the second term.
Rawlings then had to stand aside under the terms of the constitution, leaving Atta Mills to seek election.
Source: GhanaWeb
