Are Mahama’s Democratic Credentials On the Line?

Having worked closely with Ghana’s former president John Dramani Mahama, one can at- test to his commitment to democracy. The 62-year-old former Minister of Communications, writer, farmer, ICT expert and graduate of history is from a family with strong leadership pedigree. His late father was a government minister.

When the deadly Ebola virus struck West Africa between 2014 and 2016 with badly-hit Liberia isolated by the rest of the world, Mahama as Ghanaian president and Chair of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of and Government, broke that isolation by paying a crucial solidarity visit to Liberia.

Ghana under his leadership also became the regional hub for international interventions against Ebola, which killed 11,310 people from the 28,618 cases reported worldwide, mainly in West African countries of Liberia, Guinea Conakry and, Sierra Leone. Elections are triggers and drivers of conflicts including civil wars, especially in politically restive West Africa. Electoral processes are even trickier in post-conflict environments.

Indeed, only the insiders appreciate the complex behind-the-scene spadework that precedes successful elections in Africa. Take for example, the presidential polls in Liberia 2017 and Sierra Leone in 2018.

This writer served as member of the ECOWAS Election Observation Missions on the two occasions, providing communication and visibility support to the missions and the ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commissions (ECONEC).

Mahama, a former member of parliament and vice- president for three years to President Attah Mills, who died in 2012, headed the ECOWAS Observation Mission to Liberia, and that of the Commonwealth Mission to Sierra Leone.

Earlier, the recipient of several honorary doctor- al degrees and a laureate of the 2016 African Leadership Award from the African Leadership Magazine in South Africa was in charge of the Commonwealth Election Observation Mission to Kenya in August 2017.

It should be noted that unlike other foreign poll observation missions, the ECOWAS Mission takes on the additional role of preventive diplomacy in member states. This involves structured engagements, negotiations and sometimes, hard decisions to get all stakeholders on the same page. The objective is to ensure that potential conflicts are nipped in the bud before their escalation.

This strategy was very effective in Liberia and Sierra Leone, where Mahama and his fellow heads of inter- national election observer missions (mainly from Africa), worked tireless, including sleepless nights and into wee hours of the mornings to steer the electoral processes to success.

In the case of Liberia, the presidential run-off vote was postponed over procedural dispute and only held after the Supreme Court’s intervention and back-stop diplomacy. Mahama and his colleagues persevered, sacrificing their Christmas holidays to ensure that the run- off eventually took place on 26th December with results acceptable to all parties.

A similar display of shrewd diplomacy facilitated the conclusion of the contentious 2018 presidential poll in Sierra Leone, which also went into a re-run. In several of the marathon and tough peace negotiations with rival politicians, Mahama often reiterated his now famous mantra: “election is not only about winning but also about losing.” This is very pertinent in a climate where politics and elections are seen as a do-or- die affair or a matter of life and death. Mahama should know, having won and lost presidential elections him- self. He is also one of very few African leaders to have congratulated the winner that defeated him.

And this is partly the reason he is rated highly as a statesman who believes in and supports democratic processes in Africa. Some might, therefore, find it surprising that the same Mahama of Ghana’s opposition (NDC) is singing an apparently new tune.