Ghana and US 2020 elections have no similarities; Says Oppong Nkrumah

Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has rejected attempts by some people to draw similarities between the 2020 US and Ghana presidential elections.

He contends that attempts to suggest that a win by Republicans in the US will lead to a win by the NPP in Ghana or otherwise is unsubstantiated.

Ahead of the the 2020 general elections, in both US and Ghana, some political analysts and social media commentators have drawn plausible conclusions based on historical political similarities that exist between the two countries. Some have argued hypothetically that the results of the US elections could one way or the other decide Ghana’s electoral outcome.

However, responding to the issue on Accra based Okay Fm yesterday, the Information Minister emphasised that elections are won on track records and not historical antecedent.

Differences

He added that while President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is delivering on his promises with several impacting programmes, including successes in the Covid-19 fight, the case may be different in US.

He further noted that “while Mr Biden was not rejected at the polls by voters in 2016, Mr Mahama was massively rejected by Ghanaian voters.”

Mr Oppong-Nkrumah, in drawing further differences between the two elections, stated that “while Mr Biden’s running mate, Senator Harris, is an accomplished senator who has added a spark to his candidature, same cannot be said of the NDC.”

“There is no similarity between the elections in the US and elections in Ghana. Their current President was a businessman who became a politician. Our current President, on the other hand, is an astute lawyer and politician.

“Their President is contesting a former Vice-President and not a President who was voted out of power. For ours, Mr Mahama was voted out of power because he was a President who supervised hunger, unemployment, erratic power supply and economic hardship. It is not the same with Joe Biden. So there is a vast difference in the politics of the two countries,” he said.

He added that the successes chalked by the Akufo-Addo-government is what will grant its electoral victory and not any political historical similarity.

“In 2016, there was a similar myth that you cannot win the Presidency if you are not named John. Nana Addo beat John Mahama at the time despite this claim. It is about your hard work and not such comparisons,” he concluded.