NDC Republicans, NPP Democrats - the irony of political philosophy in Ghana
By now the results of the American election have taken shape as the polls closed 24 hours ago. Celebrations around the world for the winner will sing the same tune — centre right parties will celebrate with the Republicans, while centre left parties will celebrate with the Democrats.
Advertisement
In Ghana (a country that has voted the same political philosophy as the Americans have done for six election cycles spanning 24 years since 1992, as they vote in the same election year), reactions to the American elections will be as interesting as they will be ironic.
The two main parties in Ghana (they will be competing against each other in presidential and parliamentary elections barely a month after the American elections) have been fashioned according to the two dominant political philosophies that emerged as a consequence of the end of the Cold War: the centre right from the hitherto right wing and the centre left from the hitherto communist socialist philosophy.
The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) is thought to be a centre rightist party, while the ruling NDC proclaims itself to be of a centre leftist ideology.
In fact, the NPP actually shares the same symbol with the Republican Party of the United States, the elephant.
Political allegiance
The point of observation, though, is that Ghanaians approach their choice of American politicians with what appears to be total disregard for their political allegiance at home. So it is common to find a staunch believer in the NDC ideology vociferously shouting the Republican slogan, and vice versa.
The worrying signal is whether the youth and college students are being trained to understand political ideology. Part of the problem may be that both leading parties have pursued similar economic and social policies that may have blurred the identical distinction between them.
Also, it may well be that because the right wing Bretton Woods institutions have run the local economic policy framework over the last 30 years or so, the leading parties and their ideological manifestoes have played second fiddle to the instructions of the IMF and the World Bank and thus eliminated any possible discussion or debate about ideology.
Other Trending Stories
The American establishment seems to have fully recognised the ideological divide in Ghana and have related to our country on such clear basis.
The loudest expression of this observation is the periods of state visits by American Presidents to Ghana.
Visits of US Presidents to Ghana
There have been three formal state visits by US Presidents to Ghana since independence, including Bill Clinton in 1998.
Clinton came as the first-ever US President to visit Ghana when the centre left NDC was in power under Flt Lt J.J. Rawlings.
Clinton is Democrat and thus centre left.
The next state visit was by Republican President George W. Bush and he visited when Mr J.A. Kufuor of the centre right NPP was President.
It is unusual for American Presidents to visit an African country twice in two years, but this happened to Ghana. A year after the Bush’s visit, in came Barack Obama and he was hosted by President J.E.A. Mills of the centre left NDC.
So it seems as although the Americans recognise our political divide along ideological lines, our society appears to have developed political allegiance with some other denominators.
Who comes next?
Hopefully, such basis should not be harmful to national development and create unhealthy divisions, but the most important driver could be the re-opening of political discourse at the family, school and workplace levels on the basis of political ideology.
One day, very soon, our government will be able to pursue a development agenda that is owned by its ideology, so it becomes easier to chose a party or its manifesto when another December 7 approaches.
Maybe we should expect another American President soon.
If she wins, I can bet that Hillary Clinton will come if it is John Mahama.
And, yes, Donald Trump will come if he gets elected and Akufo-Addo is elected too.
Advertisement