Seeking a No2

Ten parties have been registered by the electoral commission to contest the elections, but so far only three have nominated their presidential candidates and none of the parties has yet nominated its vice-presidential candidates.

The popular feeling is that to ensure an ethnic balance, the president and his vice president should not come from the same region. The ethnic balance issue appears to constitute a dilemma for most of the parties.

Speculation is rife that the President's wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman, may be selected as Mr Atta Mills' vice-presidential candidate, although she is said to have denied it. Other names being mentioned include Dr Obed Asameoh, the Minister of Justice, a long-time Rawlings loyalist, and Alhaki Iddrisu Mahama, a special adviser to the President.

The people of northern Ghana feel they are being marginalised and are keen to have a vice-president. Some are even agitating for a Muslim vice-president, since most Ghanaian Muslims are northerners. Apart from the NDC and the NPP, the other parties cannot be said to have a national spread as they do not have offices or branches in every town or hamlet in Ghana, as demanded by the electoral commission.

Ideologically the NDC, its satellites, the PNC and CP claim to be apostles of the African socialism espoused by the late Dr Kwame Nkrumah. The pro-Nkrumarist parties have also modified their socialist stance in the light of the break-up of the Soviet Union.

The NPP has traditionally espoused western democracy and western political concepts. It has often been accused by Nkrumarists of being capitalist, elitist and incapable of meeting the aspirations of the common man.
With seven months to go before the elections anything could happen.

DESMOND CARBO

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