It is a scorching Thursday morning around one of the biggest malls in Ghana’s capital city. Two members of the Economic Fighters League (EFL) stand on a sidewalk with placards glistening in the sun. Three weeks to the country’s general election their message to Ghanaians is simple – do not waste your time voting.
It is a message the riles up a soldier passing by. He confronts them with a tone that would have some think the protestors were calling for an armed insurrection. Their message is much too incendiary this close to an election, he feels.
The placards the youth wield simply ask if Ghanaians have been getting the development they vote for. The soldier thinks these young men, one of whom was born in 1998, are taking Ghana’s 28 years of a stable democracy for granted. Go around Africa, people envy our peace and stability, he says.
There have been instances of soldiers taking the law into their hands and acting with impunity. For a second, it looked like the confrontation could escalate. He had already fired a warning my way, wary of my recorder and camera.
One of the men pushing the no vote campaign, Arimiyaw Wusama, stresses that the group he belongs does not stand for violence and insists on his right to protest. Some onlookers also jump to Aremeyaw’s side and back his sentiment. In warm Ghanaian fashion, smiles eventually win the moment.
A number of passers-by had already said they had no plans of voting and happily posed for photos with the placards. They had no qualms with the message.
The EFL is aware of the existence of such persons. The past year has been awash with reports from communities that have threatened to boycott the polls of developmental concerns. “No road, no vote” is one of the more popular refrains amid cries for better infrastructure. Some communities even threaten to chase away campaigning politicians.
There will be 12 candidates on the presidential ballot in Ghana’s December 7 election. The first two names on the ballot are the incumbent Nana Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and former President John Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
These two are more than likely to come first and second on the results sheet when it is all said and done. The only real drama will be in what order.
The NDC and NPP have had a stranglehold on the political sphere since Ghana returned to civilian rule in 1993 and the 10 other parties will once again be merely along for the ride.
For people like 22-year-old Abdul Salam, Aremeyaw’s fellow “Fighter”, the NDC and the NPP are two sides of the same coin; defined by cronyism, corruption, and seeming contempt for the people they govern.
After seven peaceful elections, Ghana is seen to have passed the test of a stable democracy. But the bar should be much higher than simple transitions of power, the EFL argues. And the NDC and NPP have proven unwilling to meet the high standards it and other Ghanaians have set.
Abdul Salam, full of energy and brimming with conviction, declares that only people like him, willing to boycott the polls, are really challenging the status quo and choosing change.
“People say if you don’t vote you can’t complain but it is the opposite. If you vote, don’t complain.” “You are the same persons putting them in those position of power so whatever they are doing, you have endorsed it.”
A clear conscience is important to Abdul Salam. He’ll sleep better when complaints about corruption and injustice color the next four years of governance.
The magic number the EFL has been eyeing is 4.8 million; the 30.6 percent of registered voters who stayed home on election day in 2016. Turn out dropped from 79 percent in the 2012 election. This has generally been attributed to voter apathy. However, no rigorous study has offered a compelling explanation.
A recent Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) pre-2020 election survey indicated that 6 percent of Ghanaians do not plan to vote, with a further 4 percent remaining undecided.
The EFL’s Commander-in-Chief, Ernesto Yeboah, would have you believe a significant portion of the 30.6 percent from 2016 are sick and tired of what he called the false consensus of the NDC and NPP’s dominance permeates all arms of government.
He hopes the active campaign being waged by the EFL will influence the perception of dwindling turnout numbers.
“They [the NDC and NPP] don’t constitute the majority that we are deceived into placing so much significance on,” says Ernesto, who did not disappoint in his meeting with me; donning his signature red beret that has drawn comparisons to Julius Malema of the Economic Freedom Fighters.
Ghana’s politicians are said to exist just to win elections thus a voter boycott is what will hit the political establishment the hardest, he contends. “Ballot boxes can get to the remotest villages in our country but yet development cannot get there.”
Before founding the EFL in 2016, Ernesto used to be part of the mainstream political architecture. He led the youth wing of the Convention People’s Party (CPP); a shell of the party Kwame Nkrumah led on en route to Ghana’s independence.
Before leaving the CPP, he had pushed for then-President John Mahama to be investigated for accepting a gift from a Burkinabé contractor who was later handed state projects to oversee. He was later suspended by the CPP for his criticism of Mr. Mahama.
That feels like a lifetime ago and Ernesto’s heart is now with his political movement borne out of the fraught social structure that marginalizes women and the youth. These two demographics constitute the bulk of Ghana’s population.
Over 50 percent of Ghana’s 30.9 million population are women but they do not make up even a third of Ghana’s legislature – 37 out of 275. Also, an overwhelming 24.5 million Ghanaians are under the age of 40.
But that they are on the fringes of Ghana’s governance is one of their main reasons that there is a cause for pause, and in the EFL’s case, an election boycott.
“Where the vast majority of the people are not involved in decision making, you cannot call that a democracy and that is what we have our hands.”
“We realized very early on that not many of the issues that confront the people are actually on the front burner with regards to the way our political parties function and how the media also functions,” explains Ernesto.
Alongside the boycott, the Fighters have other demands: mainly a constitution that ensures a new electoral system of proportional representation to break the duopoly of the NDC and NPP.
The EFL believes voters deserve representation and that all political groups in society deserve to be represented in our legislatures in proportion to their strength in the electorate.
Even people not aware of the EFL’s vote boycott had purposed in their hearts not to vote. Law student Melody Vanderpuye-Orgle fits the mold of the Fighters’ main concerns; a woman and a youth.
She no longer wants to suffer the current political class which many feel have given up on any form of morality.
“Voting is a means of communicating who you would like to lead you,” she says, but sees no viable options in the final stretch of the campaign season.
“I don’t want to partake in whatever this is when I know very well no political party is capable of leading this country to where it is supposed to be.”
Melody gives an indication of one of the Fighters’ problems i.e. giving their message a wider reach. The EFL mostly comes to the Ghanaian media’s attention when there is significant friction with the state, with a focus on the state’s penal response.
In 2019, Ernesto was among a group of protestors whisked away in handcuffs when they disrupted Parliament’s proceedings in opposition to plans for the construction of a new chamber for legislators. That got the media sniffing at his heels.
As we speak, Ernesto is facing jail time for organizing a Black Lives Matter vigil-cum protest against police brutality in July. He was again dragged from this protest in handcuffs. Ironically, police opened fire on EFL members and sympathizers who had marched to the police station holding Ernesto to demand his release.
The Fighters pull inspiration from the final act of British occupation of Ghana when independence was on the horizon. Ghana used to have a thriving non-partisan protest culture but was “frightened into silence” because of a history of violence that met dissent under military rule.
Ernesto recalls Nii Kwabena Bonne, who in 1947 formed the Anti-Inflation Campaign Committee in Accra to challenge the inflated retail prices on imported goods by Europeans.
“They had their money and they held it. That was their power,” Ernesto reminds.
On social media, it is commonplace to see people disagree with the stance of the Fighters and others who choose not to vote.
A research fellow with the Institute of Democratic Governance, Ewald Garr agreed with the grievances of the EFL but describes the call for a boycott as “non-starter”.
“If you want change, you must vote for the change you want,” Garr says to Ubuntu Times in a phone interview. Surely one of the 10 alternatives to the NPP and the NDC offers some respite, he remarks, though the EFL begs to differ.
Their stance may not even matter because of their limited reach. Garr does not think the EFL has the gravitas to effectively mobilize and seemingly capitalize on the low turnout from the 2016 election.
“We already have the problem of voter apathy. It will not be them [the EFL] causing it,” he says.
Garr even throws a challenge to the EFL; telling them to throw their hat in the political ring. “Instead of running away from that responsibility and blaming others, they should rather come to the table and play ball.”
Ernesto is not deaf to calls to join active politics but he is not above admitting this uncharted territory for him and his fellow Fighters. They are playing the long game; building from the grassroots and waiting patiently for Ghanaians on the fence to see reason and jump on EFL wagon.
“We don’t have any experience in mobilizing and organizing a revolution but as young as we are, we are ready to learn and ready to make our own mistakes and we aren’t doing very badly at all.”
The accusations that a voter strike is unpatriotic seem to cut at Ernesto. I can’t tell how deep. Wary of the criticism, he does not want the Fighters’ call for voter strike to betray their devotion to Ghana.
“When workers go on strike, does it mean they are lazy? Does it mean they love their job less?” he retorts.
“We are holding our power in order to protect the future we love so much.”