Why Gingrich might clinch the Republican nomination

There’s been a lot of talk lately about Republican dissatisfaction with Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. You’d think, listening to all the chatter, that these are the only people running for the GOP nomination. The media are decidedly fixated on the horse race between the two candidates, focusing very little on the others.

I believe we’re yet to see a full scale coronation of any republican candidate until the causes and primary season actually begins. Having followed the 2008 elections closely, history tells us that a certain John McCain was polling in the single digits around this same period during the last election cycle. In fact if you followed the Iowa logic, you wouldn’t have guessed right who Obama's Republican opponent would be. McCain came up a distant third place trailing Huckabee and Romney and tied with guess who—Fred Thompson at 13%.

I think it’s still too early to hedge bets on who gets the Republican nomination. Gingrich has some bold ideas and is the only one so far among all the nominees to put forth a straightforward plan on how he’d go about solving the country’s problems.

I don’t necessarily agree with all his ideas but there’s little doubt that this is a man of immense political strength and deep conviction. Newt is a big thinker who has to be credited at least for being bold and clear minded with his proposals. He may be polling badly now but could end up pulling a McCain.

Agyeman Rawlings and the presidency

In the ensuing cacophony surrounding Nana Konadu’s probable run, a pro-con analysis.

Pro: Konadu has political muscle and relentless ambition to go through a party primary. A major figure within the Rawlings era, her role as first lady was more than ceremonial. She participated in and sometimes led lots of programs and initiatives under her husband’s presidency. Many in Ghana will remember her trailblazing work in gender equity. Under her watch the term “girl-child” and “women emancipation” became popular. She’s ambitious, wields great organizational skills and can get things done. Beyond her social and developmental accomplishments her appetite and mastery of Ghana’s political trajectory is legendary.

Unlike Mills, she doesn’t only have the ability to stomach missiles from the NPP; she’s more than capable of conceiving, assembling and launching her own atomic bombs. With Nana K on top, NDC will be on auto-offensive. In Konadu, they have someone whose iconic status can immediately ignite passion, activism and excitement among the party’s base. Mrs. Rawlings has a Palin problem though. She’ll do great in a party primary but will struggle to garner independent votes needed to win nationally. Her candidature in and of itself should be an exciting one: first female with a serious chance of becoming Ghana’s president.

On a lighter note the video embedded shows Mrs Rawlings dancing at an NDC Norway event.

Cons: That Konadu can lay claim to the presidency—however audacious—shows how little the balance of power within Ghana politics has shifted. Agyeman Rawlings has serious questions to answer regarding her role and that of her husband during “their” military and civilian stewardship of Ghana. I have no doubt Agyeman Rawlings will bring vast experience to governance but there are many who want to move Ghana beyond the shadow of the Rawlings’s. Internally the NDC needs to treat Konadu’s stake with extreme caution because her family’s legacy is indispensable to their electoral prospects. Anyone who deems her presidential experiment facetiously does so at their own risk.

Ps: My suggested campaign slogan for Konadu is to borrow Hillary’s… “buy one get one free

Ivory Coast: Déjà vu all over again?

Etse Sikanku

This script looks familiar. Months of presidential campaigning and political mudslinging, tense general elections, a presidential run-off, contests over electoral results and finally either the disputes are resolved or civil war breaks out.

Thanks to serious challenges over voting results—mainly from the incumbent party—Ivory Coast is on the brink of civil anarchy.

Facts:
Presidential elections held on Sunday, October 31
No clear winner emerges : Gbagbo led major challenger Outtara 38 to 32
Presidential run-off held Monday November 27
Initial results show Outtara leading Gbagbo
Gbagbo’s representative at the electoral commission tears up results just as key announcement was set to be made.

This is reminiscent of the December 27th 2007 elections in Kenya where unresolved electoral disputes led to months of open war which left thousands dead, maimed or displaced.

There is growing concern that the world’s top cocoa producer might slip into political mayhem as tension increases. Major foreign news sources report that streets have been deserted and Abidjan, the country’s capitol is starting to look like a ghost town.

Currently the northern half of Ivory Coast is under rebel control while President Gbabgo controls the Southern regions. Ouattara draws support from the North where Gbabgo is currently disputing results. Earlier provisional run-off results revealed in piecemeal show Outtara is ahead of Gbagbo. The electoral commission has until midnight to declare final tallies.

In theory this will represent the first democratic elections in Ivory Coast in a decade. If the former French colony pulls through it will not only usher in a new era for one of West Africa’s most promising nations but will send strong signals of political reform in Africa. However should things turn awry it may yet confirm the worst fears of many Ivoirians: a potential return to those dark days of civil unrest.

Drugs, Grass and Cocaine: What should Nana Addo do?

by Etse Sikanku

Nana Akuffo Addo, the veteran politician from Abuakwa whose lifelong ambition has been to become President of Ghana, recently rebuffed allegations over his use of cocaine.

"I have never sniffed or tasted cocaine in my life" he charged while addressing NPP’s youth wing in Tamale.

In the past, opponents within and outside his party made political hay out of what was now beginning to resemble an open secret. Perhaps Nana and his advisers desperate to avoid defeat in 2012 must have resolved to tackle this long standing accusation head on.

Whether this will carve out to be good political strategy or not remains to be seen. Already some of Ghana’s political cognoscenti posit it was unnecessary for Nana to thrust himself into the mud. For others however, Nana’s cocaine tag was a legitimate enough subject deserving serious attention.

The issue of drug trafficking has become a hot button issue in Ghana’s political corridors following high profile cases involving former Director of Police Operations, Kofi Boakye, Ashanti’s Manhyia palace and the infamous duo of Kwabena Amaning, a.k.a Tagoe and Alhaji Abass.

Akuffo Addo represents the greatest threat to any re-election bid by current President Mills. Mills himself is battling insiders within the NDC who are sabotaging his second term bid.

The cocaine topic will not go away easily as political figures such as Kofi Wayo have challenged Nana Addo to blood tests. However there are mixed signals as to whether this is serious enough to undermine Nana’s childhood ambition of following his late father who was once President of Ghana in the early 1970s.

So what exactly should Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo do? Go for the drug tests and risk culpability or just let sleeping dogs lie?

South Africa’s Final Stretch to Democracy

Jacob Zuma is widely tipped to be the next president of South Africa

by Rejoice Ngwenya, Pretoria, South Africa.

South Africa holds its fourth post-apartheid election tomorrow. Being an important economy within Africa and to other regions of the world, one should have expected the same media frenzy that characterized previous elections to be more than ever present, not least because the next FIFA World soccer tournament will be held in South Africa.

Barack Obama’lightning world tours, Somalia’s pirate attacks, Zimbabwe’s Government of National Unity and a host of other attention-grabbing world events have taken the vigor out of the intrigues surrounding this vital election. Besides, characters like Jacob Zuma and his controversial hangers-on and Nelson Mandela have not stopped making news, so before we know it, the world would have been completely oblivious to the fact that for once in Southern Africa, elections can be after all, be free, fair and entertaining!

But there also seems to be citizen’s interest fatigue in politics. It has fallen to its lowest ebb, such that no one wants to care any more. My feeling is that just like in Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, citizens are more obsessed with political brand names than individual value addition. The late Zimbabwe vice-president and nationalist Simon Muzenda is alleged to have once told supporters at a rally that even if ZANU-PF (his ruling party) fielded a baboon, the primate would still win! So does it not matter that the wheels of justice have been deflated when the National Prosecuting Authority drops charges of corruption against Jacob Zuma? The answer in Pretoria is short and curt: who wants to know?

It would appear however, that only mischief makers gastronomically aligned to the ruling ANC have managed to, albeit negatively, sustained local interest.

One such character is Julius, the fiery leader of African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) who ironically hails a stone throw from Zimbabwe’s Limpopo River and has proved that throwing political stones at political big wigs is another day’s work. And he has an opposite number, Mbazima Shilowa, the ‘genius’ behind the emergence of ANC’s most daring political competitor, Congress of the People (COPE)

And Julius has said all there is to say; killing for Zuma, two thirds majority for ANC, faked African dancing of one politician or another. He has also accused Inkatha Freedom Party’s (IFP) octogenarian leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi of hanging too long in the game. And soby now, the boyish protagonist is awaiting two outcomes – at least according to a waiter at a nearby Pretoria hotel – an outright win for ANC or his own ‘expulsion’ from ACNYL executive committee.

Reports, suggest that Andile Lungisa and woman youth activist Vuyiswa Tulelo are keen to replace the motor-mouth Julius who they say has spoiled the good image of ANCYL. As if good image counted in African politics. But views from the Tshwane streets are that it will take more than just charisma and high moral ground to ‘depose’ Julius.

Whatever the outcome of tomorrow’s elections, Julius is assured a job, thanks to the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), a form of socialized quota to even the unbalanced labour market. Most analysts agree however that South Africa’s glaring income disparities have become more distinct even where the black government claims it is successful.

If anything, opposition contestants like Helen Zille of the Democratic Alliance(DA), COPE’s Mvume Dandala, Democratic Alliance’s Helen Zille, Inkatha Freedom Party’s(IFP) Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Independent Democrats’s Patricia de Lille and United Democratic Movement’s(UDM) Bantu Holomisa have at one time or other insisted that BEE is the password to wealth for a few ANC cronies like Tokyo Sexwale and Cyril Ramaphosa.

Worse still, when one is confronted with statistics that more than two-thirds of the South African population is considered poor, while those who live in shanty towns from Cape Town to Musina could as well even outnumber Zimbabwe’s entire population, BEE’s ‘success’ becomes just another term in the self-delusive game of pretense that politics solves everything. Certainly not in the case of the ordinary South African, who apart from being unemployed will have to grapple with poor public education and rising levels of violence and HIV Aids.

And so after South Africa’s electoral protagonists have so far spent nearly R400 million [USD40 million] on the campaign trail, will it be ANC’s Jacob Zuma, COPE’s Mvume Dandala, DA’s Helen Zille, IFP’s Mangosuthu Buthelezi, ID’s Patricia de Lille, UDM’s Bantu Holomisa ruling the political roost after Wednesday? Only ballot papers will tell.

Rejoice Ngwenya is director of Coalition for Liberal Market Solutions in Harare and an affiliate of www.AfricanLiberty.org