The Ghanaian News
January 2012
21
African viewpoint: Leaping into 2012 People celebrating New Year ’s eve at Tahrir Square, Cairo Thousands of Muslims and Christians celebrated New Year’s eve at Tahrir Square, in Cairo, hoping for better times ahead In our series of viewpoints from African journalists, former BBC Focus on
Africa deputy editor and Ghanaian government minister Elizabeth Ohene looks into her crystal ball and tells us what to expect from the year ahead. There is much unfinished business from 2011, the year of the contagious revolution; and having failed to predict the phe-
nomenon, we, journalists and commentators will try to read into every street demonstration echoes of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. My prediction is that Egypt and Libya will still provide more stories this year than Swaziland and Angola. I am predicting a num-
ber of state funerals, not quite at the North Korean level, but close” Am I suggesting then that the contagion has stopped, I hear you ask. No, I am afraid the genie is out of the bottle and we will continue to see big changes on the political landscape.
However, I suspect there will be more intervention from the Big Reaper this year instead of young people having to face armoured tanks and tear gas to change their leaders. I am predicting a number of state funerals, not quite at the North Korean level,
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but close. There are interesting elections coming up, with Senegal kicking off things in February. Robert Mugabe At 85, President Mugabe wants to serve another term in office There will be fireworks and Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade will pull out all the stops to try and win a third term. Africa’s longest lasting multi-party democracy is in for a tumultuous time. The elections in Mali will hopefully pass off without as much drama whilst we all hold our breaths for the Kenyan elections. Kenya thoroughly frightened all of us the last time it tried to hold elections and indeed, we have not seen the end of that debacle. In Zimbabwe the government of national unity would seem to be ready for dissolution. President Robert Mugabe says he is prepared to hit the campaign trail again aged 85 and claims he will lead his Zanu-PF party into another election victory. I am not holding my breath. I do wish I could tell if there will be long overdue presidential elections in Angola, but normal rules do not seem to apply to the venerable Jose Eduardo dos Santos. There will be elections in Sierra Leone and in Ghana and I hereby declare more than journalistic interests in the Ghana ones about which there will doubtless be more later. There will of course be the football fiesta, the African Cup of Nations, to be held in the unfamiliar grounds of Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. I predict that football pundits will be suggesting that the competition will be somehow devalued by the absence of Egypt, Cameroon and Nigeria. Ghana’s Black Stars training Will Ghana’s Black Stars win the the African Cup of Nations? When the captain of the Ghana national team, the Black Stars, holds up the cup at the end of the competition, let’s all remember that those three nations were defeated in the qualifying rounds. The Kenyans will shine again at the Olympics and their performance will make it worthwhile to watch the games to be staged in London. In South Africa, the ANC, Africa’s oldest liberation movement celebrates its 100th birthday this January. Unfortunately, the celebrations will be overshadowed by the struggle between President Jacob cont'd on pg. 43