Can the president-elect meet Ghana’s high expectations?

Former Ghanaian President John Mahama won last month’s election by a landslide, but he will face enormous pressure to meet voters’ expectations when he takes office on Tuesday.

After more than three years of economic misery, Ghanaians want a quick solution.

Returning to power after eight years in opposition, Mahama ran what political analyst Nansata Yakubu described as a “superior model” of campaigning.

He defeated Vice President Mahamudu Bumia 56.6% of the vote to 41.6% to achieve the largest margin of victory for a candidate in 24 years.

Mahama’s party, the National Democratic Congress, also managed to obtain an overwhelming majority in Parliament, winning 183 seats out of 276.

They are one seat short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass laws and approve budgets and contracts without MPs from the other side of the political divide voting.

The result of a single parliamentary seat has not yet been announced due to discrepancies. Four other seats are being challenged in court by the National Democratic Congress.

But voter turnout was lower than in the 2020 election, especially in some New Patriotic Party strongholds in Bawumia, suggesting that some people there – who were disappointed with the party’s performance in government – stayed home.

As Mahama’s supporters celebrated his victory, Belinda Amuzu – a teacher in the northern city of Tamale, Mahama’s stronghold – summed up their hopes.

She told the BBC: “I expect the new government to change the economy, so that the difficulties will decrease. He should also prosecute corrupt officials so that this will be a lesson for others.”

“Hardship” has become a catchphrase in Ghana since the economy hit rock bottom in 2022, triggering a cost-of-living crisis that shredded Bawumia’s reputation as an “economic prodigy” — and led to his defeat at the hands of Mahama.

However, during his State of the Nation Address on Friday, outgoing President Nana Akufo-Addo said he was leaving behind a recovered economy.

“We are handing the country total international reserves of around $8bn (£6.4bn). This is more than the $6.2bn my administration inherited in 2017,” he said.

The IMF has spent about $1.9 billion to support the country’s economic recovery since Ghana signed the program in 2022.

However, opposition lawmakers disagree with Akufo-Addo’s assessment.

Minority MP Emmanuel Armah Kofi Boah said: “The people of Ghana have already made their judgment on the true state of the nation, and that judgment has been very clear. Economic hardship, huge accumulated debt, high youth unemployment, despair, and more.”

Ghanaian economist Professor Godfred Bookbin told the BBC that the challenges facing the next government are huge.

“What Ghana needs now is credible leadership, a weak government and efficient delivery of public services. Without this, there can be no future,” he said.

Mahama promised to reduce the size of the government from more than 80 to about 60, but Professor Bookbin said it should be smaller than that, while political analyst Dr. Kwame Asah-Asante stressed that appointments should be based on merit and not loyalty.

Mahama will be flanked by former Education Minister Nana Jane Opoku Agyemang, who is set to become Ghana’s first female vice president.

Dr Yakubu said her appointment was not “symbolic” and she was not someone who could be “manipulated”.

“We have a wonderful first female Vice-Chancellor in Professor Nana Jane Opoku Agyemang,” she said. BBC Focus on Africa podcast.

Mahama served his first term as president for four years after his victory in 2012, but lost his re-election bid in 2016 as Nana Akufo-Addo came to power with Bawumia as his deputy.

Dr. Yakubu said Mahama ran in the 2016 elections based on his track record of building roads, schools and hospitals, but voters rejected him, as their slogan at the time was: “We don’t eat infrastructure.”

But she said that during the Covid pandemic, voters have come to appreciate the infrastructure his government has built, especially hospitals.

This – coupled with the fact that the economy has been plunged into a deep crisis under the current government, forcing it to request a $3bn (£2.4bn) bailout from the International Monetary Fund – led to Mahama’s re-election, Dr Yakubu added.

She told the BBC that Mahama is now expected to fulfill his campaign promise to create jobs in order to reduce the unemployment rate to nearly 15%, and ease the cost of living crisis by eliminating some taxes – or what Ghanaians call “nuisance taxes”.

Mahama promised to make Ghana a “24-hour economy” by creating night-time jobs in the public and private sectors. He said he would give businesses tax incentives to stay open at night and lower their electricity rates.

But his critics have doubts, pointing out that Ghana fell into its worst electricity crisis during his first term and the blackouts were so bad that Mahama joked at the time that he was known as “Mr Damsore” – the word “dam” meaning “off”. The word “sor” means “on” in the local Twi language.

He has pledged to scrap several taxes – including the much-criticised e-tax on mobile transactions, and a tax on carbon emissions from petrol or diesel vehicles.

Professor Bookbin said he doubted the Mahama administration’s ability to deliver on its promises.

“They did not conduct a cost-benefit analysis. There is no space in the budget to translate those promises into reality,” he said.

Professor Bukin believes that full economic recovery and growth will take a long time.

“If you’re talking about economic transformation and overall productivity growth, you’re probably looking at 15 or more years of consistently doing the right things,” he said.

“In Ghana, we are unable to do the right thing consistently for a long time. We do the right things between elections and then we mess up.”

But Mahama is confident he will prove his critics wrong, saying he intends to renegotiate the terms of the IMF loan so that money is freed up for “social intervention programmes” in a country where 7.3 million people live in poverty.

In an interview before the election, Mahama told the BBC that the IMF wanted “a certain balance” in government finances.

“If you are able to reduce expenses, and you are able to increase revenues and increase non-tax revenues coming in, you will be able to create balance,” he said.

Dr Asah Asante said Mahama’s experience as a former president would stand him in good stead to navigate Ghana through choppy waters.

The analyst added: “Of course he is likely to face difficulties, but he has what it takes to turn things around.”

Aside from the economy, corruption is one of the biggest issues facing Ghana, but not everyone is convinced that Mahama will be able to tackle this scourge.

Mahama’s previous stint in government – as vice-president and president – was plagued by allegations of corruption, although he has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

In 2020, a British court found that airline giant Airbus used bribes to secure contracts with Ghana for military aircraft between 2009 and 2015.

An investigation was subsequently launched in Ghana, but the Special Prosecutor’s Office, in a decision announced just months before the election, concluded that there was no evidence that Mahama had engaged in any corrupt activities himself.

The outgoing government is also facing corruption allegations, including the purchase of ambulance spare parts at a cost of $34.9 million and a controversial national cathedral project on which $58 million was spent without any progress in its construction.

Mahama promised that his government would tackle corruption and ensure that those responsible for any wrongdoing are prosecuted.

“We are thinking about establishing special courts,” he told the BBC.

Mahama has already established what he calls Operation All Stolen Recovery (Oral), which aims to investigate state funds and assets allegedly stolen by outgoing government officials.

Dr. Asah-Asante said Mahama should demand financial accountability from the outgoing government during the handover phase so that he can “correct everything that went wrong” once his government takes office next month.

Mahama, who will be inaugurated, added the analyst Tuesday When President Akufo-Addo steps down after his two terms in office, he will have no choice but to meet the expectations of Ghanaians – otherwise they will “punish his government the way they punished the NPP”.

Mahama succinctly acknowledged this in his victory speech, saying: “The expectations of Ghanaians are very high, and we cannot disappoint them.

“Our best days are not behind us, our best days are ahead of us. Always forward – never backwards.”