An African Election directed by Jarreth Merz (review)

In 2008 Ghana organized its fifth presidential elections since a multiparty system was finally reintroduced in 1992, after eleven years of the so-called revolutionary government led by Jerry Rawlings. Scheduled in November of 2008, those elections were under close scrutiny by an international community wondering about the likelihood of holding a democratic election in sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, earlier that year the democratic process failed successively in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Mauritania, and Guinea-Conakry due to fraudulent elections and military coups. Thus hopes were high regarding the capacity of Ghana, the first country in black Africa to gain its independence in 1957, to again set an example for other former colonies to follow.

Jarreth Merz’s documentary focuses on the symbolically significant 2008 Ghanaian elections, which saw Atta Mills of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) battle with Nana Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the closest runoff voting in the country’s history. The film covers the period from the last twenty-eight days of the campaign to the inauguration of the new president. Merz gives the viewers an invaluable opportunity to immerse themselves in this African election and assess how the young Ghanaian democracy is being tested. He follows how both candidates run their campaign, how the elections are conducted, how the votes are counted, and how difficult it is to announce the final results. The film unveils the inner workings of the electoral process in Ghana, many times exposing its flaws and showing why it is so complicated to implement democracy in Africa.

Thanks to a very skillful editing, Merz efficiently captures all the tension and paranoia surrounding such events in Africa. We see people coming to polling stations at dawn, waiting in line for hours to insure that nobody (“muscle men,” police, electoral commissioners) prevents them from casting their ballot. We see representatives of candidates suspecting the electoral commission of tampering with the results, and warning that this “will endanger the whole country.” We see civilians forming angry mobs, starting fights with one another, and lighting fires. We also see crowds chanting “we want peace.” We see military and anti-riot police circling the streets and keeping the people at bay. We see both parties asserting that they want “to manage and calm the tensions” because they “want the country to be stable.” On the film’s Web site Merz explains that he “portrayed a nation taking its political destiny in its own hands, constantly fighting obstacles to continue the road to a permanent democratic culture and stability” (http://anafricanelection.com).

Undoubtedly, his film attempts to present Ghana as a reliable African democracy. Yet when it is time to announce the results, it also hints at how opaque the democratic process remains. When both parties declare themselves the winner and reject the other party’s numbers following the runoff voting, the tension reaches its peak. The film crew, which so far had enjoyed reliable access to all the participants of the election (candidates and commissioners), is suddenly shut out. From then on, curiously, everything happens behind closed doors. The chairman of the electoral commission takes the representatives of each party inside the “strong room” (where the votes are counted) to figure out a solution, but he asks the crew to stay out. Likewise, both candidates refuse to allow the cameras to record and witness their conversations with their own camps. Ultimately, the tension is dissipated by the claim that one district has to vote again due to irregularities, and that its results will decide the winner of the election. Thus it seems likely that a consensus or a deal was negotiated overnight in order to avoid a major political crisis.

Nevertheless, the film does a very good job of depicting, for a change, African politicians as people who do desire democracy and political stability, and not as individuals prone to turn into bloodthirsty dictators once they seize power. This challenges the usual representations circulated in movies...