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How voter apathy may elect the wrong President of Ghana

Millennials have the most stake in how our country precedes. So to what degree will we engage in and be activated by politics now?

 

OPINION I don’t vote.

I don’t vote because I don’t want to. But the fact that I don’t vote does not mean I don’t know who I want as president.

I know who should be the president from all indications, ie, campaign messages, economic situation, infrastructural developments (or the overhyped ones) etc. But, I still don’t vote, because somehow, someway, I expect my preferred candidate to win without my votes.

I belong to a growing number of 18-to-30-year-olds who will identify themselves as “likely voters” this December. Our collective willingness to “stand in line for hours” outside polling stations in order to vote for the candidate we deem fit is far less than the next member of this “group” would suspect. Millennials have the most stake in how our country precedes. So to what degree will we engage in and be activated by politics now?

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We all think everyone else is going to vote for that candidate that we believe must win, we think our no-votes won’t matter. After all, how could the Ghanaian electorate’s view of that right candidate be so different from ours?

Up until a week ago, I was so convinced that at least 70 percent of the electoral populace would revolt against all that John Mahama stood for and vote for another person during the 2016 general elections. But I spent a day at the inauguration of the newly constructed Kwame Nkrumah Interchange and this belief was shaken to the core.

Beyond the usual chaotic din of the JM Toaso, JM Tusu, and “onaapo” chants, there was something else at that rally — something I thought the NDC had lost a lot of — level-headed individuals who genuinely believed that the incumbent John Dramani Mahama was the better choice for Ghanaian come Dec. 7th.

And a good number of my friends are part of these people.

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Having grown up on almost the same set of principles, sharing the same values and ethics over the years, I couldn’t understand what drove them to think that John Mahama was the president to maintain for Ghana’s continued development.

I met people at the launch of the Circle Interchange, whose support for Mahama is not based on gifts, promises or whatsoever, but a clear and definite conviction that John Dramani Mahama is indeed the best person to lead Ghana for another four years.

I wanted to exclaim and condemn them, but after speaking with some, I realized that there is this thing that both people who think Mahama should be maintained and those who don’t have in common: A sense of profound confusion about how the other side cannot understand their perspective.

Political divisions between us are greater than they ever have been, and are still getting worse by the day.

And for the first time in my life, I was forced to go back on something I was so adamantly convinced about — that Nana Addo would easily win this election.

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Mahama’s fan base scares me. It makes me think of political illiteracy – where political ignorance leads to bad politicians and corrupted multinational companies running a nation.

Political illiteracy is the last thing a democracy like ours needs.

Democracy postulates enlightenment and is, by and large, a blessing, and illiteracy, which implies ignorance, is a menace.

Democracy assumes that there is a high degree of political consciousness, a fair degree of education and intelligence, a continuous interest in public affairs and a full, abiding realization of the duties responsibilities of true citizenship. No less important, there is tolerance dissent and a willingness to accept the verdict of the majority. For all these qualities literacy is indispensable; where there is illiteracy the conditions for the success of a democratic set-up do not exist.

Where there is no discussion, no free exchange of views and expression, there is no real democracy.

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I have had several discussions with an NDC foot soldier who works with me. He argues the pros of John Dramani Mahama and highlight the cons of Nana Addo Dankwa at the least invitation.

On the NPP's change message, he agreed that NPP was doing it’s best to “paint Mahama black” in places such as Accra, T’di and Kumasi, but it didn’t bother him much as the NPP messages was not reaching the hinterlands.

He bluntly agreed that the NPP’s message was clear and directed at the intellectual elites, people who didn’t have to look too close before they could tell that Mahama was not towing the path a good president should.

But he also reminded me that a good percentage of Ghana’s 15.8million voters do not belong to these set of “intellectual elites” that the NPP message will get to. And according to him, these people did not give half a shit about whether the NDC government was blowing off millions of state-money on schemes like SADA, Mahama receiving bribery in the form of a Ford Expeditions et al.

And it made sense.

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I had traveled to some remote areas in Ghana and it seemed the anti-John Mahama rhetoric was non-existent or in some cases ineffective. But this didn’t bother me. The voting patterns in Ghana have made me learnt that, the party that the wins G. Accra and Central Regions is the party that wins Ghana.

Nana Addo had, earlier this year, charged the NPP leadership and supporters to focus on winning Accra as the way to win the elections, and even though famed pollster, Ben Ephson disagrees, I think Nana’s assertion is a clear reflection of the state of Ghana voters.

So it is up to you and I. We must shift the balance, we must not sit on the fence, it is that same apathy towards the US election that led to the announcing of Donald Trump as the president-elect.

I know, not voting was a hard practice to break. But you need to vote your conscience. I don’t vote, but I WILL vote this year.

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