Ben Ephson the optimist!

My readers will recall I have referred to this valuable addition to the written works on our country in my last two columns, and urged all those who can to read and try to absorb the worthwhile lessons in there, from the perspective of Dr Obed Asamoah.

I must also point out that his book marks a rising tide of Ghanaian politicians and statesmen who have had books published in the last few years on not only their participation in important events in their heyday, but the authors also offer important personal insights into events whose current memory without the written record remains hazy, and has been the source of needless ignorance and confusion.

Indeed, and remarkably, even our President, John Mahama, has published his autobiography, on the cusp of becoming our Head of State in his own right just before the 2012 elections. The remarkable thing about this is that our President also writes once a while on issues of moment in our media, and in doing so, positively signal to other political actors to follow this worthy example of engaging with the citizenry on a regular basis. He has become a worthy successor to the example of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, who published several books while in office.

Habit of reading

It is a pity that we are still to have a periodical devoted to book reviews in this country, which in turn helps to sustain the market for the deep education and unrivalled pleasure we derive from reading quality works by Ghanaian authors of all genres. I will urge our younger compatriots to develop and sustain the positive habit of reading as much as possible on as many subjects as possible. One is never too busy to expand one’s horizons in any subject of one’s choice by adopting the habit of reading.

As an aside, how many of us remember the names, or the achievements of the various African diplomats who became the heads of the OAU before it metamorphosed into the AU of today? Off the top of my head, I can recall the first OAU head, the Guinean, Diallo Telli, who was practically murdered by Sekou Toure who starved him to death in detention some time after his tenure. Then the two Cameroonians, Eteki Mbomoua and Nzo Ekangaki, then the Tanzanian, Salim Salim and the Togolese who launched Dr Asamoah’s book last Wednesday.

The foregoing is an aside to preface the subject for today, the latest publication by our most famous and consistent political pollster, Ben Ephson, appropriately titled ‘’2012 and 2016 Elections.’’

Last week, the chief of staff, Prosper Bani, had, on behalf of the President, launched the book and praised the author for providing Ghanaians with a credible source of election–related materials since the advent of the Fourth Republic in January 1993. I am using the word credible herein because it is a fact that notwithstanding slight errors here and there, Ben Ephson has been the most accurate and reliable source of party political polling in this country since 1992.

Fortuitously, Ephson’s book is published in the middle of the first term of President Mahama, straddling the disputed election which brought him into office, and looking forward to the next one to inaugurate his second term in office. Disputed because of the presidential election petition of 2013 in which the loser sought to overturn the choice and the will of the voters of this country through a court pronouncement which failed.

Political cynicism

It is absolutely mindboggling that we have in Ghana one of the most complex election systems in the world, but some of us manage to mount political and legal challenges to results which are accepted as valid by their followers. I am still struggling to accept this as the ultimate in political cynicism or the crippling paranoia that successive defeats at the polls that some of us have accepted as normal behaviour.

Ephson captures in vivid summations of the judgements of the nine justices of the Supreme Court, the tenor and flow of the arguments and counter-arguments of the petitioners and the respondents. It is this cynicism and paranoia in election politics in this country that directly ended in the sad farce that engulfed the topmost media award this year. Someone felt she deserved it because she had uncovered stories of corruption. I believe strongly that had the petitioners won the day, whoever ultimately won the award would have been seen as fully deserving, even though, across the board, her reports on proceedings were universally acknowledged to be deserving of such recognition. We should remember that the award ceremony was held on the heels of a massive public symposium at which sympathisers of the election petition maintained the validity of a position declared unproven by the court.

The combined effects of electoral and court defeats have thus created this high level of cynicism and paranoia among some of us. Fortunately for the people of this country, Ephson is a very optimistic Ghanaian. He believes in the innate goodness of the ordinary Ghanaian. To prove this, he has collected extremely valuable data on our opinions on the fate of the 2016 elections, two full years hence, and come to this positive conclusion.

Let me give you some juicy plums from his prodigious polling findings relative to the 2016 elections; 52 per cent  of voters polled say they trust the Electoral Commission more than previously after observing the election petition, and 59.8 per cent  have indicated they would cast their vote in 2016 based on the personal attributes of whoever is the presidential candidate of whichever party.

In 2012, that is the last election, and the one which ended in court last year, 61.8 per cent voted on the personal attributes of the candidate of their choice, 28.4 per cent  because he was the candidate for a particular party and 5.2 per cent  on the basis of the region where the candidate came from.

On any day, these are figures  certain to raise eyebrows in this country for a simple reason; the 2016 presidential candidates of the two major parties would not change from the 2012 slates. But we all can take comfort in the undisputed fact of the credibility of Ephson when it comes to polling in this country