“THE SECOND TERM OF MY PRESIDENCY”
By Gideon Asare Sackitey

Securing second term elected political office especially that of the President of the Republic is no mean task. It calls for very sound planning and strategy borne obviously from how that administration has traversed its first term. For those who have successfully pulled through, it usually was not easy and the dynamics of the road to retaining an elected office is strewn with many nerve racking, rough situations. Some of these situations take you to uncertain heights some candidates would but for pressure, just pack off, considering some of the wranglings and happenings that turn up, especially internally, i.e. within the incumbents own party.

Indeed, to secure a second term, I am of the opinion that it must be based PURELY on performance of the first term and how it has impacted wholly on the national economy and how far the people of the country perceive that their lives have been transformed or the potential thereof. In our world where opinion polls are highly unreliable and fraught with the difficulty of acceptance, the situation is much more difficult to ascertain ahead of time.

In Africa today several countries are lined up for elections a number of them such as Ghana, Liberia, South Africa, Zimbabwe (?), etc gunning for second terms as Presdients.

According to John P. Burke, a Professor of University of Vermont in the USA, the odds are fairly high that a sitting president eligible for a second term will need to prepare for such an experience. He is of the opinion that second terms present new peculiar challenges.

“These are not insurmountable, and some presidents have done better than others,” adding that, “as with a successful first term, effective transition planning is needed,” an area I will be examining later in a separate article.

I will be taking a close look at the situation in Ghana exhaustively. But will also dwell heavily on the situation as it pertains in the USA, due to its longevity and obvious curious experiences.

A cursory examination of our own experience in Ghana is of critical essence. The truth of the matter is that in Ghana, because of the unfortunate disruptions of the political system for a large part of the nations’ political history, the culture of civilian political administration is only now taking root and experiences of first terms for civilian political office holders are rather rare.

It must be noted that but for the great Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah ( 1960 – 1964, ( but had been in office since 1954 as leader of Government Business and later in 1957 as Prime Minister and I believe we can consider these times as terms of office), Jerry John Rawlings (1992-1996 and 1996 – 2000), John Agyekum Kufuor (2000-2004 and 2004 to 2008), Ghana’s 50 plus years has not seen second terms of our leaders because they were rudely truncated by military adventurers.

As I said earlier, Kwame Nkrumah became prominent and was invited to return to Ghana as general secretary of the United Gold Coast Convention. In 1949 he broke away to from the Convention People's Party under the slogan “Self-Government Now”.

In February 1951 the party swept to victory in the polls and became the leaders of Govermnent business in the colony's first African government. The Gold Coast had become the first British colony in Africa to achieve self-government.

On 6 March 1957 Ghana achieved independence with Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah as its first Prime Minister. On 1st July, 1960 it became a republic with Kwame Nkrumah as its first President

On 24th February 1966, the government of Dr. Nkrumah was overthrown by the Ghana armed forces and the police. A National Liberation Council (NLC), headed by Lt. General Joseph Arthur Ankrah, was formed to administer the country.

General Ankrah was removed from office in April 1969 and Lt. General Akwasi Amankwa Afrifa became the Chairman of the NLC, which later gave way to a three-man Presidential Commission with General Afrifa as chairman. The Commission paved the way for a general election in 1969 which brought into power the Progress Party government, with Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia as Prime Minister and Mr. Edward Akufo Addo as president.

The Ghana armed forces again took over the reins of government on 13th January 1972, and Colonel (later General) Ignatius Kutu Acheampong became the Head of State and Chairman of the National Redemption Council (NRC). The name of the NRC was later changed to the Supreme Military Council (SMC). General Acheampong was replaced by General F.W.K. Akuffo in a palace coup in July 1978.

The SMC was overthrown on 4th June 1979, in a mass revolt of junior officers and men of the Ghana armed forces. Following the uprising, an Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) was set up under the chairmanship of Flt.-Lt. Jerry John Rawlings.

The AFRC carried out a house-cleaning exercise in the armed forces and society at large, while restoring a sense of moral responsibility and the principle of accountability and pro- bity in public life. The AFRC was in office for only three months and, in pursuance of a programme already set in motion before the uprising, allowed general elections to be held. On 24th September 1979, the AFRC handed over power to the civilian administration of Dr. Hilla Limann, leader of the People's National Party which had won the elections.

In the wake of the perceived continuing downward plunge of the country, the Limann administration was overthrown on 31st December 1981, just 27 months inoffice without any opportunity to even end its first term.

After several experiments with the military, Parliamentary elections were held in 1992 with junta leader Jerry Rawlings emerging as President.

The Fourth Republic was inaugurated on January 7, 1993 with the swearing-in of Jerry Rawlings as President. In 1996, now Mr Rawlings, was re-elected for a second term. In 2000, four years down the line, he willingly handed over politivcal ofice and power to John A. Kufuor of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) on January 7, 2001 who went ahead to secure a second term from 2004 to 2008. He has since handed over to John Evans Atta Mills who took office in 2008.

All so soon as we say in Ghana, Professor Mills’ first term is nearly over and come December 7 next year (or earlier) – 2012 – more than 10 million Ghanaians will troop to polling stations and either renew his mandate or give a fresh one to another.

As stated earlier, the concept of civilian political administration in Ghana has not gained root yet, due to military adventurism, let alone second terms for civilian administrations.

That Professor Mills will be given a fresh mandate towards a second term is not for me to say. The people of Ghana will decide at the next elections. But if we are to go by the Ghanaian trend where we are yet to have a one-term president, where all the civilian presidents under the 1992 Republican Constitution, have done the full length of two-terms, one is tempted to think that the Prof is likely to secure a second term too.

Imbedded in the transition to second term of any presidential ambition is the monster called incumbency, incumbency advantage and incumbency abuse.

I will not try to spell out what it means. But just to explain that it is the situation where a sitting President with the advantage and perks of office goes into an election with others who are deemed not to have that same advantage.

This is where a sitting President has the army, police, civil service, public service to undertake activities that virtually go to prop him up in his bid to secure another term. A by-product of our kind of civil service structure and how it operates.

This situation arises because of the thin, often invisibly non-existent line between the roles of these state institutions and how they relate to their political characters just before, during elections and the period immediately thereafter. Take note,I am not by any stretch of imagination saying this is what will happen. But looking at how our civil service cum public service operates, there is some contortion that is not clearly seen, or if it is seen, people in these offices pretend not to see them.

One must note that while much attention has focused on the transition to office of newly elected presidents, sitting presidents who have been successful in gaining re-election face an equally herculean tasks as they have to prepare for an enduring second term campaign.

In the US, of the 19 presidents who have served since 1900, eight have been re-elected. This includes Presidents William McKinley and Richard M. Nixon, who did not serve out their full second terms. Additionally, four vice presidents who assumed the presidency were successful in gaining election in their own right -Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson (USA Almanac 2000).

Thus, the odds are fairly high that a sitting president, eligible to serve another term, will need to prepare for a new term in office and it takes so much, in some instances in Africa, the very lives of the people they wish to rule over. But as you know, this is not the object of this article.

Therefore, in some sense, second-term transitions present a less daunting challenge. Indeed, as you will be aware, sitting presidents do not face the difficulty of hurriedly trying to fill key positions, especially key cabinet positions and all the hundreds of the numerous positions in the Municipal, District and Assemblies across the country which often are a direct source of whether the electorate will vote for the incumbent of not because they feel represented in government or not.

Filling positions in the White House, cabinet, and sub-cabinet positions in the roughly 75 days from Election Day in November to Inauguration Day on January 20 is no easy task either but constant practice over the last 200 plus years has made it look seamless to many, especially to us in these parts struggling to make meaning of democracy and rule of law.

The situation, as in Ghana, with respect to departments and agencies is especially advantageous. Current appointees can stay on their jobs if the president so prefers, or they can be replaced in a time frame of the president’s choosing. This is no small advantage. Most importantly, there is no requirement that cabinet and sub-cabinet members be reconfirmed by Parliament as is the case in the U.S. Senate. The difficulty is in the “job for the boys concept” or the situation where the President’s hands are tied to the wishes of so-called “party loyalists”.

But as Lee Kuan Yew noted, the idea of party loyalists must be resisted and rather offices be filled, including Parliament, with qualified and competent people. (“We have resisted the temptation, and the pressure, to fill up the Parliament with party loyalists. We have to field the best that Singapore has” (Petir 30th Anniversary Issue 1984, 22).

Since 1984, the People’s Action Party (PAP) of LKY has “talent spotted” widely and adopted the Civil Service recruitment process of tea sessions, interviews and psychological tests to select its candidates. As discussed, the PAP “talent spots” from within the state structures and integrates them horizontally into the Party. (see Chen and Neo 2007; Barr 2006).

By contrast, the “shadow government” of many parliamentary systems, newly elected presidents must move very quickly in selecting and then nominating members of the cabinet and other Ministerial positions. Indeed, the way our Legislature acts speedily to confirm those nominees and filling sub-cabinet positions is even more problematic.

The reason is that the time from presidential selection to confirmation now averages some eight months. Thus, while a new administration is not fully staffed for some considerable length of time, a sitting president can rely on fuller horsepower in the early months of a second term.

Sitting presidents seem advantaged in the appointment of a lot more of the positions in government, which do not actually require Parliamentary approval. They do not face the time constraint of quickly filling the huge numbers of people – personal assistants, spokespersons, regional ministers, district chief executives, boards and other directors of state institutions etc that form the office of the President or the Executive.

According to Prof. Burke, “skilled and valued staff members can be retained or promoted. Most importantly, there is not the steep learning curve that the fresh staff of a newly elected presidency generally faces. There is built-in institutional memory from one term to the next that is generally absent when the presidency changes hands.” One would have thought that civil servants could be trusted to really serve one administration and the one after; or better still the nation should have systems in place that will maintain this institutional memory.

In the case of Jerry Rawlings, the clarion call for the second term was “continuity”. That the Rawlings regime should be allowed to continue the development of the rural areas and the provision of electricity to the rural areas. The NDC ran a campaign slogan: "Let there be light for rural people, for they are Ghanaians too!"

Although it is typical for incumbents in Africa to be re-elected (a few cases stand out: Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia and Matthieu Kerekou in the Republic of Benin, who had both lost out in 1991. Kerekou staged an electoral comeback last year while Kaunda was barred from contesting by a dubious constitutional amendment) the Rawlings victory left no obvious after taste. His lengthy stay at the top was an advantage in other less obvious ways. Younger voters, who have known only Rawlings as head of state, seem impressed enough to vote for him rather than an unknown opposition figure. Also, there appeared to be some kind of affinity between him and younger Ghanaians who saw him then as one of them because of his age.

John Agyekum Kufuor’s second term was borne out of a continuation of a change agenda and the urge to make Ghana the leading voice in Africa, championing economic diplomacy and development of the private sector.

Prof Mills’ call for a second term, as has been the practice all over the world, has been to be given a second chance to continue the good works of enhancing Ghana’s development and placing the country on a higher pedestal of nationhood where individuals’ lives are impacted hinged on the “Better Ghana Agenda.”

Sometimes the situation can be disturbing. This could be due to international economic order (or is it disorder?), how the economy is performing within the international commity of nations. However, for the first time in the history of this country, the story is different. The Prof is most lucky at this time in the history of Ghana, where the nation is producing oil in commercial quantities!

In this regard, we have no excuse than to as a government, unleash a huge outlay of economic and infrastructural transformation that will no doubt bring the needed change in the lives of the people. This and many more in the area of health, education, housing, jobs and a huge positive turnout of the industrial sector holds the key to a second term.

For me, I believe the state has a deep role here. It is on opportunity for the state to lead in the development of key sectors of the economy that would no doubt propel citizens to take absolute control of their lives. As Professor Claude Ake suggests in “The Unique Case of African Democracy”, in order for African democracy to survive and be relevant and sustainable it will have to be radically different… and have to de-emphasise abstract rights and stress concrete economic rights … additionally, political democracy should not be separated from economic democracy.”

Will our leaders for once, across Africa, see the people and not just themselves, friends and relatives? Can they like some few others –Lee Kwan Yew, Nelson Mandela, Wiston Churchill, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and the Greek Philosophers etc – whose names are written in gold put their country FIRST? Can our political office holders see their offices as places to offer sacrifice and not places to seek meat and drink? Can they begin to really love the people and not pretend, as they do during elections? Can they use state funds wholly for intended purposes? Will elected office holders shift towards these paths to engender sustained national development that second terms (or more?) become a matter of course and not a do-or-die affairs for incumbents and even first term office seekers?

It is only when these new attitudes, ideas and purposeful leadership are pursued that the people would rise to make second terms a reality. Of course, we the people must know that change takes time and does not happen overnight. We, the people, must lend a hand at all times to the change and better life we so crave for. The opposition must get real and live above petty, crappy alternative propositions. The fact is that the masses deserve more than the constant partisanship that we have seen over the more than 50 years of nationhood.

Overall, then, securing re-election is a personal triumph for a sitting president. But a personal triumph is not necessarily a successful presidential triumph as presidents continue on office. Second terms present new challenges. These are not insurmountable, and some presidents have done better than others.

As with a successful first term, effective transition planning is needed. But what makes for success the second time around is different in many respects. Sitting presidents are wise to recognize the importance of transition planning, but they must also understand how that task now differs for their second term.

If i were a President, my second term would be most remarkable! Why? Because since I do not have another election to haunt me, my focus will be the PEOPLE and not necessarily PARTY. My attention will be to increase access to housing/education or ensure that policy be geared toward making the private sector roll out affordable housing in reality than rhetoric.

Health facilities and like equipment will be higher than ever on the priority list. The situation that Dad went through at the Koforidua General Hospital where hospital equipment could only be found at a nurse's house will never be, as it is the case in the rest of the country.You will love to talk about the order transportation system, sanitation, etc.

If I were a President, how would you see my second term?

The author is a journalist/political scientist/currently manages MED MEDIA CONSULT