Jerry Rawlings - Democratic President

Democratic President

In J.J Rawlings' first official speech subsequent to the removal of the Limann government, he announced the creation of the National Commission on Democracy (NCD), which would begin the decentralisation of government and the dissemination of people-power. Opposition to the PNDC, with pressure from the United States through the CIA began demanding a return to multi-party democracy, although a referendum showed mixed feelings by the Ghanaian citizenry on this. The National Commission on Democracy was put into high gear to begin the process to return the country to multi-party elections. National Commission for Democracy (NCD) was empowered to hold regional debates and formulate some suggestions for a transition to multi-party democracy. Although opposition groups complained that the NCD was too closely associated with the PNDC, the commission continued its work through 1991. In March of that year the NCD released a report recommending the election of an executive president, the establishment of a national assembly, and the creation of a prime minister post. The PNDC accepted the report, and the following year it was approved in a national referendum. Political parties were legalised—-with the provision that none could use names that had been used before—and a timetable was set for presidential and parliamentary elections.

Rawlings retired from the Ghanaian Armed Forces on 14 September 1992.

When presidential elections were held in 1992, Rawlings stood as the candidate for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the successor party to the PNDC. Although his opponents were given access to television and newspaper coverage, and limits to the freedom of the press had been lifted, no single candidate could match the popularity of the sitting head of state. Election returns on 3 November 1992 revealed that Rawlings had won 58.3 percent of the vote, for a landslide victory. Foreign observers declared the voting to be free and fair.

Almost immediately, the leaders of the country's opposition parties claimed that the presidential election was not fair, and that widespread abuses had occurred. The leaders encouraged their followers to boycott subsequent parliamentary elections, with the result that NDC candidates won 189 of 200 seats in the new parliament. Rawlings was therefore accorded a four-year term backed by an elected assembly of supporters for his platform. Answering questions about polling place irregularities, he promised to initiate a new voter registration program to be completed in time for elections in four years.

In 1993, President Rawlings headed the Ghana delegation which participated in the first Tokyo International Conference on African Development.

Rawlings and the NDC were elected in 1992 and 1996. Per constitutional mandate, Rawlings's term of office ended in 2001; he retired in 2001 and was succeeded by John Kufuor, his main opponent in the 1996 elections. Kufuor succeeded in defeating Rawlings's vice-president John Atta-Mills in the 2000 vote. In 2004, Mills conceded to Kufuor in spite of the alleged vote-rigging by Rawlings and other NDC officials. Kufuor ran for another four years with the mandate of the people of Ghana.