Politics is the same everywhere; it is mostly full of sizzle, hardly any beef.
Sometimes, you wonder how some people got in, especially Montgomery Brewster, the worst politician in human history.
On December 5, 2024, two days before we go to the polls to elect our next (cycle) of leaders, Hollywood would release ‘Brewster’s Millions: Christmas’, the sequel to ‘Brewster’s Millions’, that important 1985 American comedy which broke box office records and got critics thinking.
In the film, Montgomery Brewster, a baseball player, is tasked to spend $30 million in 30 days to inherit $300 million left by his uncle.
He should not give to charity and must stay within some strict spending guidelines.
Brewster (played by comedian Richard Pryor) experiments with a few ventures but finally decides that the best way to spend foolishly and not look stupid is to contest for the mayor of New York.
Buffoons and Bofrot
Brewster knows he is not in the race for a good reason and does not hope to win.
Strangely, however, the polls seemed to be favouring him because he is popular.
He adopts a confrontational slogan to campaign against himself and other contestants, urging voters to vote for ‘none of the above.’
The candidates sue him for muddying the already not-too-clear political waters with his unusual politics of foolishness.
In the end, he leaves a trail of shocking but amusing events in the annals of American politics but inherits his uncle’s money anyway.
We are a reflection of the people we elect to lead us.
They come in the form of righteous pretenders, ambitious buffoons, diabolic operators, and ‘bofrot’ in political suits.
When a well-intentioned leader comes along, we wonder whether the system would not corrupt them and make them just as ineffectual as the ones before them.
Soon, we realise that they were just paper tigers.
If you felt cheated and fooled after voting for your favourite politician, you just sold yourself cheap to a paper.
Paper tigers appear powerful, speak well, look charismatic and sometimes even messianic.
When you get closer, they are actually weak, incompetent and disturbingly empty.
At this point, a few ideas are coming together in your head.
It hurts that you were too impressionable to fall for sweet promises and bland rhetoric.
You are wiser now but you can’t help feeling stupid for not taking your part of the social contract seriously.
History credits former Chinese leader Mao with the term when he referred to American imperialism as paper tiger in a 1956 interview.
Polls and prophecies
In less than a week, we will be signing another social contract with the winners of the contentious 2024 elections.
Like the just ended American elections which overwhelmingly re-elected former President Donald Trump against a sitting vice -president, the Ghanaian electorate is confronted with the hard duty of choosing between former president John Mahama and vice-president Mahamudu Bawumia.
In America, polls had predicted a tight race that would breathe on a cliffhanger up to the last minute, but voters had other ideas. The Democrats seemed to have done everything right against a candidate whose many wrongs were in the stratosphere.
Recent polls by Global InfoAnalytics predict former President Mahama to win by 52.2% while Bawumia rakes some 41.4%. Cheddar’s New Force will garner 3.0% to beat Alan Kyeremanten’s Movement for Change.
The other candidates put together will account for only 0.9%. Earlier surveys by Prof smart Sarpong had given Dr Bawumia 49.1% and President Mahama 45.8%.
The last time, the prophets got it wrong. This time, we have seen them flip-flop and come back to prophesy again from the bellies of the apparitions they mistake for God.
No outcome will surprise Ghanaians except the surprising outcome that Alan John Kyerematen won.
Gamechangers
The recent American elections have taught us that intelligently crafted messages and big money do not win elections.
The electorate may have already made up their minds.
The Americans also showed that there is nothing like a superior vote, and that Oprah Winfrey’s vote carries the same weight as the eighteen year old who is voting for the first time.
I donated to the Harris-Walz campaign. Weeks after the elections, I continue to receive donation requests from the fundraising team.
Experts say the Trump campaign may have spent about a fifth of what Harris put in.
In Ghanaian elections, money is spirit. Voters are made to swear after receiving money, and aggrieved politicians go back for their money after sad political outcomes.
We were told issues did not matter when money was on the table.
T -Shirts took the place of books, just as billboards replaced critical questions at town hall meetings.
We were told strongholds of political parties would vote en-masse for any creature clothed in party paraphernalia.
We were told the value was the same if we voted for any candidate who looked beautiful and could ‘sort out’ the boys.
That was then. This year, the vote may be decided by saner factors. If you punch-past the fanciful veneer of Nana Kwame Bediako’s redemptive policy to drag the sea from Accra to Kumasi, the young man has some fantastic ideas.
We cannot pretend we do not know how digitization and digitalization would transform Ghana, especially if the NPP perfects free SHS and returns our Cathedral millions.
John Mahama’s 24-Hour economy is a gamechanger, just like the proposed women’s bank and the ‘No Fee Stress’ policy for first year university students.
Whatever happens on December 7, Ghanaians should not elect a paper tiger.
Tissues of the Issues
Kwesi Tawiah-Benjamin
bigfrontiers@gmail.com
