|
| From Washington Post
|
| Ghanaian May Retire to Position of Power
| By Douglas Farah Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, August 21,
| 2000; Page A14
|
| ACCRA, Ghana -- When 34-year-old Flight Lt. Jerry John Rawlings seized
| power in a military coup in 1981, he promised a socialist state, jetted
| off to Libya and Cuba, and denounced the United States, the
| International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as rapacious capitalist
| exploiters of Africa.
|
| Two decades later, Rawlings has taken Ghana's 18 million people on a far
| different road. This small West African country is one of the closest
| U.S. allies in the region, and--having pursued one of the most radical
| free-market reform programs on a continent that relies on hundreds of
| millions of dollars in loans from the IMF and the World Bank--Ghana is a
| darling of the international lending community.
|
| Near the end of a second term as Ghana's elected president, Rawlings is
| preparing to leave office, but it's unclear to what extent he will
| surrender power. Rawlings's post-presidential role is seen as a key
| factor in how Ghana's young democracy will evolve after December's
| presidential and legislative elections.
|
| Rawlings will retain considerable sway after leaving office, especially
| if his party, the National Democratic Congress, wins. Rawlings had the
| party's charter rewritten to make him party leader for life, and his
| wife, Nana, is seeking the party's nomination for vice president.
|
| Still, if Rawlings respects the constitutional limit of two four-year
| terms, his departure from office will mark the end of an era for Ghana.
| It also will complete his transformation--the first for an African
| ruler--from coup leader to elected president to elder statesman.
|
| In the twilight of Rawlings's rule, "relations between the United States
| and Ghana are the best they have ever been," said U.S. Ambassador
| Kathryn Dee Robinson. One sign of this was President Clinton's stop here
| on his 1998 tour of Africa and the jubilant rally Rawlings hosted for
| him. Another is that, as part of its $20 million effort to help build an
| African peacekeeping force, the United States is preparing to send Army
| Special Forces troops to train a battalion of Ghanaians.
|
| But such warmth has taken years to evolve. In the 1980s, Rawlings
| praised Moammar Gadhafi's Libya as a "revolutionary dream" and became a
| leader of Africa's radical left.
|
| Like others of his generation, Rawlings--the son of a Scottish
| businessman and a Ghanaian woman--had watched Ghana decline from its
| proud place as Africa's first liberated colony. Within 12 years of
| gaining independence from Britain in 1957, Ghana had undergone two
| military coups, and unchecked corruption had brought it to the verge of
| economic collapse.
|
| Rawlings, a flamboyant air force pilot, used deep public discontent and
| his personal charisma to pull off his own coup in 1979. He ruled for 112
| days, overseeing the conviction and execution of dozens of senior
| officers--including three former presidents--for corruption.
|
| Rawlings then handed power to an elected government, but it failed to
| stop the economic decline. On Dec. 31, 1981, with inflation running at
| 142 percent annually, he again seized power, saying the civilian
| government had "bled Ghana to the bone" and vowing to end corruption by
| establishing a socialist state.
|
| His new government imposed price controls and nationalized businesses.
| Street vendors accused of charging higher than official prices were
| beaten and dragged through the streets. Executions resumed, and hundreds
| of people fled into exile or were jailed. Still, inflation galloped and
| poverty deepened. In 1984, Rawlings changed tack, accepting an IMF plan
| for radical, free-market economic restructuring.
|
| Many Ghanaians resisted the bitter medicine. Rawlings's friends and foes
| alike say he survived only because of the enormous popularity with which
| he began his rule. He won strong support in rural areas, where he
| visited districts that no other president ever had and sat through
| traditional ceremonies to listen to what villagers had to say.
|
| Rawlings also used his populist skills to become an elected leader,
| winning a disputed victory in 1992 elections that brought a return to
| civilian rule. Four years ago, he won reelection in a vote that
| international and Ghanaian observers praised as free and fair.
|
| For years, Ghana's economy has grown steadily, although poverty remains
| widespread and many economists say income distribution is still sharply
| skewed in favor of the wealthy. Prices for Ghana's main exports, cocoa
| and gold, are near 20-year lows. That and the high price of oil have
| rekindled inflation and widened the government's budget deficit.
|
| To his supporters, Rawlings remains an incorruptible savior and
| pragmatist who kept the country from plunging into chaos. He is still
| Ghana's most charismatic political figure and can rouse crowds with
| populist speeches in which he often wanders from his prepared texts to
| attack opponents or revive revolutionary themes.
|
| To his detractors, he is an authoritarian with a Messianic bent whose
| ideology consists mostly of his will to keep power and who will remain
| the true power in Ghana should his party win December's elections.
|
| "Rawlings is not a visionary; he is a product of the people's anger" in
| the 1980s, said Yao Graham, a onetime Rawlings ally who is now a
| political analyst and writer. "He took office surrounded by the left and
| is now essentially the leader of a very conservative faction. The only
| uniting thread in these years is his survival."
|
| Even Rawlings's supporters say his National Democratic Congress has lost
| popularity as a result of public fatigue with economic reform, the sheer
| length of Rawlings's 18-year rule, and a bitter intraparty fight to
| succeed him. Many party faithful are deserting because Rawlings and his
| wife have concentrated power in their own hands, said Augustus "Goosie"
| Tanoh, a former Rawlings ally who is running for president at the head
| of the opposition Reform Party. Rawlings has allowed "the evolution of a
| cult of personality around him," Tanoh said.
|
| Rawlings helped his vice president, John Atta Mills, win their party's
| presidential nomination for the December election, but Mills lacks
| Rawlings's charisma and faces a tough battle against Tanoh and John
| Kufuor, candidate of the New Patriotic Party.
|
| As Ghanaian politics prepares to move forward without Rawlings as
| president, "one of the deep concerns that hasn't been addressed . . . is
| what to do with a guy who is only 53, has spent half his life in power,
| enjoys being a leader and hasn't prepared for anything else," said E.
| Gyimah-Boadi, director of the Center for Democracy and Development here.
| "By temperament, he can't sit back and watch things happen."
|
| A senior leader of the National Democratic Congress said that if Mills
| wins, Rawlings will become the head of the council of state, a currently
| powerless body that could be given real authority. "The new president
| will need Rawlings for stability," the official said. "And if the
| opposition wins, they will need to give assurances of goodwill toward
| Rawlings, because he still controls the security apparatus." The
| military retains a strong personal loyalty to Rawlings, who has been
| careful to cater to its needs.
|
| Tanoh and other critics said the expectation that Rawlings will retain
| authority after leaving office is an attitude that makes Rawlings a
| threat to the future of democracy here. "Rawlings had an enormous
| passion for justice and ending the abuse of state power," Tanoh said.
| "It is very painful and sad to see this attitude now."
|
| |
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