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Photo Courtesy: Abod |
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Of Presidential Races – The Ben Ephson
Factor
By Samuel Dowuona
Ghanadot.com - One person, whose electoral results predictions most
politicians would always love to wish away is Ben Ephson.
Ben Ephson wears two caps – Managing Editor of the Daily
Dispatch, one of Ghana’s most credible private newspapers
and also the CEO of Ghana Alert, a company dedicated to
opinion sampling on what is likely to be the outcome of
elections in this country since 1992.
Much as electoral results predictions by Ephson’s Ghana
Alert had come under criticism from some politicians,
history has proven that those predictions were usually the
closest to the reality – much closer than similar
predictions from highly reputable think-tanks like Institute
of Economic Affairs (IEA) and the Centre for Democratic
Development (CDD-Ghana) among others.
For the records, Ben predicted victories for Rawlings over
Professor Adu Boahene in 1992 and over candidate J. A.
Kufuor in 1996. He also predicted J. A. Kufuor’s victory
over Professor J. E. A. Mills in both 2000 and 2004. Prior
to those, he had predicted the candidature of all of them at
the respective party congresses.
What seems to generate the rancor from politicians against
Ben’s predictions is when those predictions do not favor
them. Naturally those politicians, who Ben’s predictions
tend to favor, are usually very silent and happy I guess.
Meanwhile, when the tables turn against them, they become
the critics and call Ben names, and sometimes put some
political party colors on his organization.
By dint of hard work, Ben has carved a niche for himself in
the area of the predicting the outcome of elections in this
country. This makes him hold sway on politicians. Even those
who love to wish away Ben’s predictions also need to hear
from him to know if they stand a chance in their ambitious
moves to seek political office.
One would have expected Ben to pride himself with the fact
that he holds sway on politicians, but he carries himself
with such modesty and yet makes his predictions with such
prophetic accuracy, one is reminded of the biblical “Counsel
of Ahithophel”, which the bible likened to the oracles of
God Himself. Ben and his team do not consult mediums; they
actually do pure academic research work and base their
predictions on findings.
As always, in the wake of the many names, which have popped
up over the last one year or so, within both the ruling NPP
and the NDC of people who want to be flagbearers of those
two major political parties and possibly president of Ghana,
Ben took the pain to do some amount of opinion sampling for
the list of candidates in both parties.
For the NPP alone, there are so many names one has even lost
count. The figure is between 19 and 21 candidates. NDC
propagandists described the fact of numerous presidential
aspirants in the NPP as “an Oprah Winfrey Show”, but NPP
spokespersons say it is rather a reflection of the numerous
presidential materials that the party boasts of.
However, leading members of the party, including the
president and senior minister have expressed grave
reservations about the numerous aspirants fearing that it
would divide the party. Senior minister J. H. Mensah thinks
it is like a football team where all the 11 regular players
and the reserved players on the bench want to be captain.
The NPP’s long presidential aspirant list include the
sitting Vice President Alhaji Aliu Mahama, Minister of
Trade, Industry, Private Sector Development and PSI, Alan
Kyeremanteng, Foreign Affairs, Regional Co-operation and
NEPAD Minister, Nana Addo Akufo-Addo, Works, Housing and
Water Resources Minister, Hackmann Owusu-Agyemang, and
former Deputy Minister of Interior, Nkrabeah Effah-Datteh.
The rest including former Minister of Finance and later of
Education, Youth and Sports, “Aseadeayeo” Osafo Maafo,
former Minister of Trade, Industry and NEPAD, Kofi Konadu
Apraku, Chief Executive Officer of Korle-bu Teaching
Hospital and Ghana’s beloved heart surgeon, Dr. Kwabena
Frimpong-Boateng, US-based Ghanaian Medical practitioner,
Dr. Arthur Kennedy, Ghanaian-born Vice President of Bank of
America and in more recent times, young outspoken former
Presidential Press Secretary, Kwabena Agyepong (amazing!).
Also in the race are Papa Owusu Ankomah, Minister of
Education and Sports, Mr. Dan Botwe, former General
Secretary of NPP and Minister of Information, Professor
Isaac Ocquaye, Minister of Communications, Jake Obetsebi
Lamptey, Minister of Tourism and Modernisation of the
Capital and some other not too popular persons.
The NPP presidential list is still growing, but the NDC was
fortunate to have only four contestants, and even that was a
big number, considering the fact that the party had in the
past fielded hand-picked presidential candidates; beginning
with the founder himself, Jerry John Rawlings
(affectionately called Jerry Boom) who was unanimously
approved in his two terms between 1992 and 2000.
When Jerry’s two terms ended, he also hand-picked his Vice
President, Prof. John Evans Atta Mills to replace him in the
2000 elections as NDC flagbearer. There was some amount much
rancor in the party and even among political analyst then
for what Jerry did at the infamous Swedru rally. Analyst
damned it as dictatorial and not good for the party’s own
internal democracy and for Ghana’s budding democracy.
But later in 2004 Dr. Kwesi Botchwey, former Finance
Minister in the PNDC/NDC era challenged Prof. Mills for the
NDC presidential slot and lost. That made only two
presidential aspirants in the NDC at the time.
Kwesi Botchwey opened the flood gates and so this year when
the party held its National Delegates Congress to elect
their flagbearer for the 2008 elections, it was Prof. Mills,
Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, former Minister of Education and
also Minister of Communications, Mr. Edddie Anang of Masai
and Alhaji Mahama Iddrisu, former Minister of Defense in
both PNDC/NDC era, who were in contention for the
presidential slot.
In the midst of the heated campaign, interspersed with all
kinds of alleged under-cuttings, Ben Ephson emerged with one
of his strong predictions and said emphatically that the
over 1,700 NDC national delegates would vote for THE
CANDIDATE at their congress. He went further to say that the
candidate was Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, who is suspected,
as always, to be the founder’s (Rawlings) and national
executive’s favorite.
In spite of Ben’s prediction, the other candidates were not
perturbed, but rather intensified their campaign using all
kinds of tactics all the way to congress.
Spio-Garbrah in particular was reported to have tried some
under hand moves, which did not work anyway. Eddie Annan
kept declaring himself “President in Waiting”, but that did
not materialize either. Alhaji Mahama Iddrissu, for me, did
not really look like he was interested in winning the NDC
presidential slot. Indeed analysts have dared to suggest
that he was in the race to split vote in favor of the
candidate, Prof. Mills.
The outcome of the NDC presidential race could only prove
Ephson right – Eddie Anang naturally came last with a paltry
28 votes, lackadaisical Mahama Iddrissu came third with 137
votes and Spio, who earned the name SUPER GARIBA among the
northern folk won 145 plus one (146) votes to come second.
As if placing second means anything.
The good old Professor, looking feeble due to obvious weight
loss, but speaking with lots of energy and making sense more
than ever, pulled as much as 1,362 (81.4%) votes to capture
the NDC presidential slot for the third time.
Some analysts have said that the Prof. only won sympathy
votes because of Spio’s alleged attempt to discredit him
with accusations of ill health and old age in the infamous
mobile phone text message to the founder (Rawlings). Others
say his victory was a foregone conclusion because it was no
secret that he was and has always been the founder’s
favorite. But I say the Ben Ephson factor was at play once
again.
Indeed at the NDC congress several things happened, which
seemed to prove that Prof. Mills was indeed Rawlings’
favorite. For whatever it was worth Rawlings and Mills came
to the congress grounds in one convoy led by six men on
horses. Whether that was deliberate or a mere coincidence no
one can tell. When Rawlings had the opportunity to address
the delegates, he asked them to vote for a candidate who
represented the aspirations of the masses. The founder
himself refused to exercise his right to vote at the
congress, but he had registered his silent support for Prof.
Mills by coming in the same convoy with him.
All said and done, whether the founder’s actions, inactions
and statements were deliberate or not, whether Spio’s
allegedly text message to Rawlings worked against him and
for the Prof. or not, whether the Alhaji was in the game to
split votes in favor of the Prof. or not, the outcome only
proved one thing, you can’t wish away the efficacy of Ben’s
expertise in polling in Ghana’s elections.
While we put the outcome of the NDC presidential race behind
us, it is important for the numerous NPP presidential
aspirants to take note of the Ben Ephson factor and not just
criticize it and wish it away as Spio, Annan and probably
the Alhaji might have done.
Ben has already predicted that NPP national delegates are
only interested in four out of the unending list of
candidates. Nana Akufo-Addo, Alan Kyeremangten, Hackmann
Owusu-Agyemang and Vice President Aliu Mahama are the only
four preferred contenders.
This pre-supposes that all the other aspirants are simply
wasting their time, money and energies. But guess what they
would not listen to Ben – they had never listened to him.
They would continue in their die-hard attitude (which is
good) and meet their fate. They would cite people like
Abraham Lincoln of America who lost elections 10 times
before winning and yet became one of America’s greatest
presidents, if not the greatest.
I don’t think everyone in the race is truly expecting to
win, but whether they lose or win, it would afford them the
opportunity to market themselves to delegates and to the
voting population for next time. Moreover that is the beauty
of democracy.
Long live democracy in Ghana, long live our beloved die-hard
politicians and long live the Ben Ephson factor – we can’t
wish it away, can we?
Samuel Dowuonah, Ghanadot.com, January
12, 2007
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