Opinion.
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong, USA.
They are supposed to be from the same ruling National Democratic Congress
(NDC) party but events wheeling within the party are diametrically
different. At certain times, it is as if the NDC is in permanent chaos,
caught in self-destruction, about to explode into pieces. It is as if the
NDC has mutated into two opposition parties in a deadly contest for power.
For failing to command-and-control the almost two-year-old John Atta Mills
government, ex-President Jerry Rawlings, his wife, Nana Konadu Agyemang,
and their associates have become a disturbing menace to the Mills regime,
and by extension, Ghana’s budding democracy. In years gone by, Rawlings
would have used this as pretext to overthrow President Atta Mills, as he
did against the President Hilla Limann government by fabricating all kinds
of reasons.
The Mills regime appears to be under constant commotion. Though Mills and his
associates have proved formidable in containing the Rawlingses from the
word go, a never-ending dog fight has apparently ensued between the
restless Rawlingses and the noiseless Mills group. For the past two
years, almost every month it seems a would fight erupt from the Rawlingses camp against the Mills regime. The latest is Mrs. Rawlings’ supporters,
contravening the NDC’s and Ghana’s electoral laws, plastering posters
bearing the image of Mrs. Rawlings. The Rawlings family, especially Mrs.
Rawlings, hasn’t denied or endorsed the posters. Endorsed or not, the
sophistication of the posters points to Mrs. Rawlings.
In his usual prone-to-disorder days before the unlawful posters, Rawlings
has written a strongly worded letter to the press complaining of being
harassed and blackmailed by the Mills camp. There is no material evidence
to prove his assertion, making it part of his normal brashness. And if it
is true, why should the Mills’ regime do that to the so-called “founder”
of his NDC? It may be because of the Rawlingses’ disgraceful behaviour that
has become embarrassing to Ghana and Africa. By nature too emotional to
think well, the Rawlingses actually harass and blackmail themselves.
Though those who know the Rawlingses well aren’t astonished by their
actions, the current quarrel between them and Mills gives an insight into
the Rawlingses state of mind and their never-ending thirst for power
despite ruling Ghana for almost 20 years. In the Rawlingses political
universe, Ghanaians are witnessing what an NDC democracy looks like and
why they should look outside the party’s stickers because of its
implications for Ghana’s democracy.
For the Rawlingses, their democracy is different from the rest of NDC and
Ghana. Democratic tenets of the rule of law, freedoms, justice and human
rights are interpreted from their whims and caprices. If you aren’t in their
camp they see you with a dim view, won’t tolerate you, and you are
“undemocratic.” In the Rawlingses, dictatorship, autocracy, tyranny,
authoritarianism and democracy are all mixed together.
You either got to be a genius or in their perverted mental plane to
comprehend them – hence the almost endless upheaval within the NDC and its
spillover into the Ghanaian political space. By nature not inclined to
peacefulness, the Rawlingses love chaos, they like it rough, noisy and
nasty. The Rawlingses were politically made in chaos and disturbances,
coup d’etats, violence, corruption and exploitation, mendacity and
propaganda, moral crises, deaths and disappearances, killings, blackmail,
conflicts, fighting, deceit and, like Chiroptera bats, at home with
political darkness.
These things guide the Rawlingses’ understanding of politics, it illuminates their
democracy, their “private democracy.” Some knowledgeable Ghanaians see
them as politically “suicidal.” As the chaos theory would say of the
Rawlingses, their “deterministic nature” in Ghana’s political history does
not “make them predictable,” as Stephen H. Kellert would say in In the
Wake of Chaos: Unpredictable Order in Dynamical Systems (1993). For this
reason and the fact that they have insatiable appetite for power, if the
Rawlingses have the chance they will overthrow the infant Mills
administration as they did to the newborn 21 months President Hilla Limann
government in 31 December, 1981.
To the Rawlingses, it doesn’t matter if “it is illegal for any member of
the Party (NDC) to prematurely give an impression of his or her interest
in the flagbearership race for the 2012 elections as the party’s rules
clearly indicate that this declaration should not come earlier than one
full year to the General Elections when the Party is in power,” as the NDC
executive reacted to the Mrs. Rawlings’ criminal posters.
The Rawlingses incited their associates to sneak into the darkness and
plaster Mrs. Rawlings’ posters illegally across Ghana, as if there is
going to be presidential elections tomorrow, to harass the Mills
government. And they feverishly hope this may inflame some wrong-thinking
military officers to overthrow the Mills regime. Hypocritically, this is a
conduct from the pages of the Rawlingses’ political history. Still, this
is are the Rawlingses who claim to have the progress of Ghana at heart, yet
repetitively befuddle Mills from performing his acute national
assignment.
As Ghana’s democracy develops, the Rawlingses, stuck in their long-running
authoritarian mind-set, feel discomfort in the blossoming democratic
light, which has given them nightmarish screams and sleepless nights. The
Rawlingses behaviour are troublingly unique in Africa. From ex-President
John Kufour to ex-African Presidents and Prime Ministers such as
Mozambique’s Joaquim Chissano, Botswana’s Festus G. Mogae and Sir Ketumile
Masire, Kenya’s Daniel arap Moi, South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki and Nelson
Mandela, and Tanzania’s Benjamin Mkapa, none and their families behave
like the Rawlingses. No doubt, some Africans have been saying of the
Rawlingses’ mien, “Ghanaians are too tolerant …They can’t do that in
Nigeria.”
The Rawlingses appear panting in their long gone monolithic political
system and find it problematic in their homogenous thinking, where they
used to brutally order gullible Ghanaians around, especially Mills and his
associates in the presidency. As much as everyone knows, the Rawlingses
deeply regret giving up power. And as much as everyone knows, they
have to, if not, Ghana would have gone the Liberian way.
Coming into democracy by immense pressure and accident, the Rawlingses are
allergic to the democratic values of give-and-take-and-tolerance.
Power-drunk and control-freaks, the Rawlingses are afraid of the on-going
political equilibrium and the consequent balances it brings to the
democratic system. Inhumanely, they want to steal the show always. They
have to be right always, no matter the situation.
The Rawlingses’ fatal hypocritical dealings with Mills and his
administration is seen in a new study of the connection between power and
hypocrisy. In a report carried in the London, UK-based The Economist, and
aptly titled The Psychology of Power: Absolutely, Joris Lammers (of
Tilburg University, the Netherlands) and Adam Galinsky (of Northwestern
University, USA) found out that “people with power that they think is
justified break rules not only because they can get away with it, but also
because they feel at some intuitive level that they are entitled to take
what they want.”
The Rawlingses incendiary bombasts are calculated, and Ghanaians have to
bear that in mind. Rawlings’ angry letter and Mrs. Rawlings’ irritating
posters are all premeditated. By nature moral and intellectual weaklings,
the Rawlingses find it difficult to be disagreed with openly – that’s
their main hatred for Mills and his associates. They wish to have a
constant presence in the Mills presidency, commanding and controlling it.
That’s why they went all out to help Mills win the presidency. It isn’t
because they love Mills so much.
But events have turned upside down. Mills and his group, who project
images of elitism, understand the crude psychology of the Rawlingses very
well. Particularly, in Mills’ Vice President John Mahama, who has openly
called the undemocratic bluffs of the Rawlingses. A new political culture
is being cooked within the NDC that will ultimately make the NDC more
democratic and that will affect Ghanaian citizens.
Having ruled for almost 20 years, the Rawlingses aren’t as simple as both
the NDC and Ghanaians imagine them to be. Let ex-President John Kufour
tell you the problems the Rawlingses gave him in his eight years in power.
The Rawlingses power equation, mired in irrational traditional
superstitions, isn’t difficult to solve and isn’t as easy as most
Ghanaians picture it to be. The Mills faction knows this pretty well and
their ability to intellectually take on the Rawlingses is responsible for
the near-perpetual wailing from the hysterically and psychiatrically
disordered Rawlingses.
Added to their rough politics that border on threats to the Mills regime
and Ghana, is their ability to use the mass media to their advantage.
Let’s consider this: why should the Rawlingses behave like this inside and
outside the NDC hyperbole? Who are the Rawlingses? What do they think they
are? What is it that the Rawlingses want from the NDC and Ghanaians? What
is it that they’re attempting to achieve almost 20 years after being in
power? In the Rawlingses, the Ghanaian infant democracy isn’t only
complicated but under threat and will need massively skillful help from
committed democrats from across the political spectrum.
Photo: Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Rawlings.
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