December 7th has come and gone (as Ghana ‘brofo’ will put it). Some of the candidates are to yet to know whether Ghanaians believe they are presidential ‘material’ or not.
But for both Edward Mahama and Paa K Nduom, they now know what the next four years of their lives, at least, will not be like. They will not be going anywhere near the castle (or is it the ‘stool’).
I will come back to the presidential election but let me address the parliamentary for a minute. Was that an accident, mishap or what! Does it have anything to do with the political ‘sophistication’ of the Ghanaian?
I bet you the next set of parliamentarians will think about what they say and they will also seek to fulfill the ‘mandates’ given them by their constituents. The lesson is this: if you mess with the electorate, they will mess with you on Election Day. Period!!!!!

Either way one thing is for sure, the next four years will be very very interesting to watch. Will this be the end of rubber-stamping? Will this call for broader consensus on all issues that come before parliament? And what about walk-outs? I guess there will be no need for them anymore in this coming session since any filibuster can be done right there in the chamber.

Uncle Fiifi is a veteran as far as run-offs are concerned. Remember 2000? Will his experience from 2000 count for anything come December 28, what with the fact that he lost in that particular one?
Akufo-Addo may not have that level of experience but if the primaries do matter, then one can say that but for the ‘timely’ concession of Alan the cashman, he (Akufo-Addo) would have found himself face-to-face with a run-off.
So here we are; experience or not, ready or not December 28 is the D-day.

There have been so many analyses done by the ‘experts’ as to why things turned out the way they did. I will focus on just two: many supporters of Akufo-Addo had already concluded a landslide victory for him and so did not bother to go out to vote. Others also believe turnout was low because some supporters had become disillusioned.
Now tell me, how does one ensure that an envisaged landslide victory becomes reality? My elementary knowledge tells me it is only by voting and voting massively.
Then again if you are disillusioned with the system how do you ensure change if you don’t vote?

So me thinks the biggest disappointment was the fact that people just could not be bothered to go vote. Another source of worry has to do with the incredible number of rejected votes. Is it really that difficult to press your thumb against a piece of paper?

 
This whole low turnout business because people thought somebody had already won brings to mind the 88/89 elections for D-hall P involving Bongoman, Opoosini and others.
Yes, you guessed right. It had to be Riis House. They were fortunate to have two candidates but what did they do?
They assumed that Opoosini was way too popular in the school and therefore everybody was going to vote for him. Don’t ask me for I have no idea the basis for such assumption.

In their ‘Riis-House wisdom’ they decided that all Riis house residents vote for Bongoman (the other candidate from Riis) and then count on majority of the school to vote for Opoosini. By their analysis and indeed that of the school, Opoosini was to win handedly and then Bongoman could manage a second or third place.

Well as it turned out their analyses were wrong just like those of many of the ‘experts’ in the December 7 election.
The election was held and Opoosini, the favourite son, came in third. He barely made it.
So can we really rely on pre-election polls?
Can we trust voters to do what they say they would?
Can we presume on their ‘innocence’? And most importantly, can we continue to take voters for granted?
No matter what else happens on December 28, election 2008 has given us a lot to chew and ponder over and Ghana will be the winner if we all endeavour to learn from these lessons and apply them responsibly and appropriately.