GHANA’S JOHN ATTA MILLS WANTS OUT OF THE SHADOWS AND INTO THE
LIMELIGHT
Of all the statements in his decade in public office that John Atta Mills might wish to retract, his 2000 pledge to consult with former president Jerry John Rawlings ”night and day” may rank at the top.
For Atta Mills (60) has never been able to shake the image that he dances to the tune called by Rawlings, a charismatic but polarising figure in Ghanaian politics.
On the eve of what could be his last election, in which he faces near-certain defeat, he still faces the problem of proving himself politician enough to emerge from the long shadow cast by his predecessor, even while sharing the grandstand with him.
Independent pre-election polls show incumbent President John Kufuor taking between 53 and 55% of the vote, negating the need for a second-round run off.
”I am a candidate running on my own merit, on my own record and on my own belief in what is best for Ghana,” Atta Mills said in an interview on Saturday before a final rally of supporters of his National Democratic Congress in the capital Accra.
”There is no point in always looking at what came before, in the past. Better to look to the future.”
Nicknamed ”Prof” for his storied career as a jurist and law professor, Mills was tapped in 1996 to serve as vice-president for Rawlings, who took power in a coup in 1979 and led successive military then democratic regimes until he was constitutionally mandated to step down to make way for the 2000 vote.
Riding Rawlings’ coattails in the 2000 elections was enough to give Mills 44,5% of the vote, but he fell in the second round to Kufuor, the opposition candidate, his rival in Tuesday’s contest.
Over the past four years, the NDC has done little to minimise Rawlings’ presence, sending him out on the campaign trail where he was sure to draw crowds.
But he has garnered more attention than the candidate himself, to the delight of the ruling New Patriotic Party.
”It’s hard not to think that Rawlings is the candidate, you have to catch yourself from saying ‘Rawlings’ when you are talking about the NDC,” one Ghanaian journalist said.
”Everybody likes Mills, and thinks he is a good and reasonable man. But they don’t feel they know him, they don’t feel they can trust that he will keep his own counsel. And that’s maybe not his fault, but that is the way it is.”
Only in the impoverished northern regions does Mills hold sway, among those populations who believe they are worse off now than they were four years ago, under the NDC government.
”Mills speaks for the people, he understands that we are poor and hungry,” said Stephen Adjeni, who stood for five hours in the baking sun on Saturday to lend his support to the candidate.
”We wish he would speak louder.” – Sapa-AFP