Ghana Has Fallen on Economic Hard Times

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal

Ghana was the first sub-Saharan African country to gain its independence after the Second World War. The former British colony known as the Gold Coast served as a source of inspiration elsewhere on the continent, and its first leader, Kwame Nkrumah, dreamt of a larger pan-African state.

The movement sought unity among people of African descent and also improvement in the lives of workers who, it was alleged, had been exploited by capitalist enterprises in Africa. There were even some African Americans who moved to Ghana, the most notable being the left-wing academic and activist W.E.B. Du Bois.

But like so many other countries in west Africa, Ghana fell prey to military rule after the increasingly despotic Nkrumah, who had banned all opposition parties by 1964, was overthrown two years later. It did not re-emerge as an electoral democracy until the 1990s.

Since then, it has taken major strides towards democracy under a multi-party system, with its independent judiciary winning public trust. Ghana consistently ranks in the top three African countries for freedom of speech and press.

There have been eight presidential elections, and five presidents, since 1992, including the current incumbent, Nana Akufo-Addo.

While the political system remains relatively healthy, at least as compared to neighbouring states, the country is facing one of its worst economic crises in decades. The size of Ghana’s debt is now almost 90 per cent of the total annual value of its economy.

Ghana’s annual inflation rate stood at 41.2 per cent in April, after reaching a two-decade high of 54.1 per cent last December. Soaring inflation is compounding the sufferings of many Ghanaians who now must dig deeper into their pockets to afford essential goods. About a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line.

Prices of many items have more than doubled compared to last year. They are constantly changing, partly due to the unstable nature of the local currency, the cedi, which keeps losing value against major currencies. It plummeted more than 50 per cent against the U.S. dollar in 2022, while the central bank hiked its main lending rate to 27 per cent.

Professor John Gatsi, Dean of the School of Business at the University of Cape Coast, explained that the nation is “in a high inflation regime right now and this affects food items and imported items all together.” According to Gatsi, Ghana’s over-dependency on imported goods also increases prices.

The Ghanaian economist also blamed the current high inflation figures on poor economic decisions by managers of Ghana’s economy. Excessive lending to the central government by the Bank of Ghana to finance government activities was a key reason for the crisis.

Ghana’s debt levels have been unsustainable for years, and the government had to renegotiate its debts with local creditors in a debt exchange program. It has just signed a new bailout program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) worth three billion dollars over three years to help ease the problem, but how much difference will that make?

It also hasn’t helped that President Akufo-Addo is behind a grandiose undertaking projected to cost some $350 million – a building to be known as the National Cathedral of Ghana, an interdenominational Christian church scheduled to be built in Accra, the nation’s capital, as part of Ghana’s 60th anniversary celebrations.

In a speech at the turn of the new year, just two weeks after Ghana effectively defaulted on repaying most of its external debt amid the mounting cost-of-living and economic crisis, the president, scoffing at critics, renewed his commitment to the religious structure.

“The National Cathedral is an act of thanksgiving to the Almighty for his blessings, favour, grace and mercies on our nation,” he insisted at the construction site. God, he declared, had spared Ghana from conflict that had afflicted many countries, including some of its West African neighbours, who have been dealing with numerous security challenges.

According to the plan, the main building will have 5,000 permanent seats with room for thousands more, a music school, an art gallery, shops, and national crypt for state burials. It is envisioned to be a sacred space for all Christians, who make up 70 per cent of the population.

Though most of the costs are supposed to be covered by donations, with the state providing the land and some seed funding, critics have queried the amount of money -- some $58 million -- that the government has so far spent on the project.

Akufo-Addo first revealed plans for the cathedral after he won the 2016 election but work on what the president has referred to as “his gratitude to God” only began in 2022, two years after his re-election.

Ghanaian economist Theophilus Acheampong, a political risk analysis, believes the government’s priorities are misplaced, considering the country’s current economic situation. And members of parliament refused in December to approve a further budget allocation of $6.3 million from the government. Construction has now stalled due to lack of funds.

Despite the opposition, Paul Opoku-Mensah, the presidential appointee leading the National Cathedral project, remains confident in its viability and sees it as a way to boost the economy. “We have a strategy of bringing visitors to Ghana. We have to use our religiosity for our own development,” he said.

 

Japan is Fearful of Potential Conflict With China

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal

A shifting balance of military power between the United States and China in the East Asia-Pacific region has raised doubts about Washington’s ability or willingness to protect its allies and partners.

According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Beijing’s military budget reached $219 billion in 2022, more than double what it was a decade earlier, though it is still less than a third of U.S. spending during the same year.

Taiwan is, understandably, the polity most concerned about this, but other states, like the Philippines, also worry and are moving to bolster their own defences. Meanwhile, Japan has announced a massive increase in its military spending, which will allow it to project its power region-wide in response to China’s “strategic challenge.”

Last December Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced plans to double Japan’s defence budget to $315 billion over five years, making it the world’s third largest after those of the U.S. and China, and equivalent to two per cent of GDP, in line with NATO’s own targets, in a departure from Tokyo’s postwar commitment to keep spending at one percent of GDP.

These changes, which fall within the framework of a new National Security Strategy released last August, have radically altered the armed forces’ remit: they will no longer be limited to defending Japan but will have the means to counterattack, and even neutralise, military bases in unfriendly countries. They will be reorganised, with the army, navy and air force placed under a joint command to respond more quickly to emergencies.

Japan will also acquire new weapons that can strike enemy targets 1,000 kilometres away with land or sea-launched missiles -- a move some believe violates its war-renouncing constitution.

A recent Japanese defence ministry white paper describes China as potentially disrupting the region’s geopolitical and military balance and threatening the Senkaku Islands -- claimed by China as the Diaoyu Islands -- and Taiwan, which Japan insists it will defend.

Japan and China have a long-standing dispute regarding the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, with both sides claiming these islands to be under their jurisdiction. Currently under Japanese control, Japan says that the islands are an inherent part of Japanese territory as per international law.

Sino-Japanese relations deteriorated sharply in 2012, after the Japanese government bought three of the Senkaku Islands from their private Japanese owner. China has increased its presence and activities near the islands in recent times and Chinese naval incursions into their territorial waters have become more frequent. Today, Japanese fishermen continue to have unhindered fishing rights in the vicinity of the islands even while Chinese ships regularly patrol the area.

Also identified in the white paper as adversaries are North Korea, which test-fired intercontinental ballistic missiles near Japan throughout 2022, and, since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia. Japan’s dispute with Russia over the Kuril Islands, which the Soviet Union annexed at the end of the Second World War, is still unresolved.

Japan has also joined Australia, India, and the U.S. in the Quad, officially the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, created as a counterweight to China’s assertive actions. Japan’s relations with India are crucial as both have been victims of unilateral Chinese actions. Both Russia and China are heavily critical of the grouping, with the latter labelling it as “Asian NATO.”

Beijing loudly objected to Prime Minister Fumio visiting Ukraine and attending a NATO meeting in Brussels in March. In fact, Japanese Ambassador to the U.S. Koji Tomita May 9 told reporters that will open a liaison office in Tokyo.

Japan currently remains bound to the pacifist constitution the U.S. imposed on it after 1945. Article nine states that “The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.” Its military, known as the self-defence forces, is limited to a strictly defensive role.

Critics argue that it has left Japan ill-equipped to respond to present-day security threats posed by China and North Korea. Keio University professor Tomohiko Taniguchi, former speechwriter and foreign policy advisor to the late long-time former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has warned that “never before has Japan faced three hostile nuclear powers and non-democratic countries,” China, North Korea and Russia, as is now the case.

Japan has a full alliance with the United States, and a commitment from Washington to retaliate against any country that attacks Japan, including with nuclear weapons. That has worked while America has reigned supreme. But China is now rapidly approaching military parity with America in Asia.

Japanese law has also explicitly banned any nuclear weapons from its soil since 1971. Fukui Prefectural University Professor Yoichi Shimada, another long-time friend and advisor to Abe, feels it is imperative for Japan to have some kind of independent attacking power against China or North Korea, “and that includes possibly a nuclear arsenal.”

But by turning its back on pacifism, Japan has put itself further at odds with China. In December, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin urged Japan to “act upon the political consensus that the two countries are cooperative partners and do not pose a threat to each other. Hyping up the ‘China threat’ to find an excuse for its military buildup is doomed to fail,” Wang warned.

Is Turkish President an Autocrat?

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been forced into a second round of voting in Turkey’s much-scrutinized presidential election.

Erdogan came in first with 49.5 per cent of the vote, against the 44.9 garnered by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, on May 14. Since neither candidate crossed the 50 per cent mark, they will again face off in a runoff on May 28.

A former civil servant who is part of the Alevi minority, Kilicdaroglu led a 24-day march for justice in 2017 which was seen as the biggest show of defiance against President Erdogan’s rule for years. His foreign policy is no more “pro-western” than Erdogan’s.

In the aftermath of Turkey’s dramatic result, a new name is on the lips of political commentators: third-place presidential contender Sinan Ogan, leader of the MHP Nationalist Movement Party. Backed by the ATA Alliance, a block of four far-right parties, he secured 5.2 per cent of the electorate, and the support of those voters will be vital for President Erdogan going forward.

Erdogan seems to have survived a string of disasters, including a soaring inflation rate at about 50 per cent, and a botched response to twin earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people three months ago. And he faced a newly unified opposition.

The major cities of Istanbul, Izmir and the capital, Ankara, went for Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the CHP Republican People’s Party, who cobbled together a six-party NATION Alliance, but most of the country’s heartland backed Erdogan and his AK Justice and Development Party’s PEOPLE Alliance.

Even eight of the eleven provinces that were affected by February’s twin quakes voted for him in the presidential poll.

Following the first round, Erdogan asserted that his country showed it has an “advanced democratic culture.” Most of us consider this an exaggeration, which it is. But is Turkey even a democracy, whatever that word means these days?

In the west we have become accustomed to calling presidents or prime ministers we don’t like authoritarians. The word has been used against, among others, Erdogan, Victor Orban of Hungary, the PiS government in Poland, and, of course, Vladimir Putin. And maybe even Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. At most, we grant them the adjective “illiberal.”

But what exactly does that mean? That these rulers have great advantages, in terms of controlling the levers of power, when facing their opponents at the ballot box?

Of course they do. But how different is this, really, except in degree rather than kind, from the ideological hegemony and political legitimacy granted to parties like Canada’s Liberals or the Democratic Party in the United States?

Don’t they also find massive support from the media, academia, and elsewhere? Don’t their opponents find themselves not only criticized, but vilified as well, as “bigots, racists, purveyors of hate,” and therefore unworthy to govern?

So let’s get back to Turkey and use a sports analogy. How many people would show up to watch a wrestling match knowing it was “fixed” and the participants were basically just going through the motions? How many people would have bet against Saddam Hussein or for that matter Hitler or Stalin, even if they did hold elections? How many people would stay up half the night watching the results on television?

But let’s review the recent Turkish vote. The campaign was intense and both sides had ample access to the electorate to disseminate their programs. The May 14 turnout was nearly 89 percent, underlining the great faith Turks put in elections. This was far, in fact very far, greater than what we have seen in recent Canadian or American elections.

Erdogan allowed his opponents to create a six-party coalition to try to unseat him. The voting itself appeared not to have had any noticeably major irregularities. And surely a genuine authoritarian would have seen to it that he won in the first round, even if only by a point or two? In the concurrent parliamentary election, Erdogan’s AK Party and its nationalist MHP ally also have eked out a slim majority of 316 out of the 600 seats.

Does this mean Erdogan is genuinely popular? Yes – at least for a slim margin of the electorate. And the same is true of the others I’ve mentioned, and probably -- much as we may not like to hear it – even Vladimir Putin himself.

So should we cease criticizing their politics and activities at home and abroad? Of course not. But there’s no need to paint them as dictators who rule simply by the gun and stay in power by terrorizing their people.

That allows us to “hate” them without recognizing they are representative of a very big chunk of the Hungarian, Israeli, Turkish, and Russian population, just as Volodymyr Zelensky is in Ukraine. (And remember, one of Zelensky’s elected predecessors, Viktor Yanukovych, who won the presidency in 2010, was removed in 2014 via what amounted to an extra-legal insurrection.)

Erdogan will win on May 28, mainly because he will gain the votes that went to Ogan, the nationalist on his right. And then he’ll have won fair and square, not that different than was the case when Emmanuel Macron beat challenger Marine Le Pen 58.5 to 41.5 per cent in last year's French election, winning the presidency in a second round where the popular vote came in at just 71.9 per cent.

If “authoritarian rule” can be ended via a non-violent change of government through an election, is it really that? Calling people like Erdogan autocrats means we don’t have to face the difficult task of confronting the political cultures of these states that allow them to win office.