The Rhythm is Ghana Get You! 🇬🇭🇺🇸

Sometimes you can just see patterns in the data, they’re not always obvious, and increasingly machines are better at finding them than people, but I guess it’s still true that “Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it's a simple adventure story. Others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe” (Luthor, 1978).

Of course, you can “take the robot out of the human” (Wilcocks, 2016), but you can’t take the data out of the analyst; my favourite data set at the moment is summarised for you in Table 1 below. It’s a dataset that I’ve been subconsciously tracking for several years and one which I had to get down and stress test, this being one of the most opportune and interesting of years in which to test the data.

Table 1 presents the electoral results for Ghana and the US through the period 1980 to 2020, noting that 1992 is recognised as Ghana’s first fully democratic election, and 2020 is to be confirmed.

Ghana 🇬🇭 US 🇺🇸

2020 NPP or NDC GOP or DEM

2016 NPP GOP

2012 NDC DEM

2008 NDC DEM

2004 NPP GOP

2000 NPP GOP

1996 NDC DEM

1992 NDC DEM

1988 NA GOP

1984 NA GOP

1980 NA GOP

NPP = New Patriotic Party, associated with Ghana’s political right

NDC = National Democratic Congress, associated with Ghana’s centre-left

GOP = Grand Old Party aka the Republican Party, associated with the US’s political right

DEM = Democratic Party, associated with the US’s centre-left

Table 1: Corresponding Electoral Results for Ghana and the US through the period 1980 - 2020.

Sources (Electoral Commission Ghana, 2020), (US Federal Election Commission, 2020)

The following scenarios are not intended to be War an Peace, merely snapshots from other universes, bouncing around inside Schrodinger's boxes, or not as the case may be (Schrodinger, 1935 as cited in Britainca, 2020):

Scenario 1: Status quo, 4 more years, the end of the world as we know it? One could argue that mankind has adversely impacted that world to such a degree that a new world order is needed. Well, scenario 1 is sure to deliver that, as the short term trend points to both incumbents securing a second term, and beyond that, both parties securing an additional term. With Donald Trump Jr. waiting in the wings could we be looking at 8 more years of a Trump in the White House? Which is not unprecedented as George Bush Jr. and George Bush Sr. can attest. But before you jump for joy, or not, there are other rhythms in the data worth exploring ... --- ...

Scenario 2: None of the antonyms of status quo seem to adequately describe the opposite of status quo; let’s imagine that both incumbent presidents, Ghana’s Nana Akufo-Addo, and the US’s Donald Trump are defeated. Whist bucking the trend shown in scenario 1, scenario 2 perpetuates an alternate trend pointing to a re-paralleled NDC - DEM alignment to 2028, and 8 years of HE John Dramani Mahama and Joe Biden, followed by the customary switch back to NPP - GOP as the rhythm continues. Un-paralled one might say, yet in this universe there are many parallels worth listing, notably:

Both Mahama and Biden are former Vice Presidents (VP)
Both Mohama and Biden are making a run 3rd for President
Both Mohama and Biden are fielding a female VP

With Mahama, having already held the position of President (2012 - 2017) will it be 3rd time lucky for Biden, or as he likes to put it “three-strikes” and you’re out (Biden, 1994 as cited in vox.com, 2020)? And what abut the curve ball?

Scenario 3: Poles apart, where the US leads, others won’t follow. The opinion of the Economist’s Intelligence Unit (EIU) is to “expect the ruling New Patriotic Party [NPP] to win” (eiu.com/Ghana, 2020), whilst going on to suggest that “the deteriorating [US] outlook increases the risk that the president, Donald Trump, will lose the November 2020 election” (eiu.com/USA, 2020). Now, whether real intelligence or fake intelligence (FI) is yet to one seen, as these opinions will be tested, however hindsight provides a cautionary note here as in 2016 there were numerous opinions that predicted both Mahama and Clinton to win, all of which were wrong. And so in a year where 2020 vision has never seemed so important, do opinions count for nought, is a rhythm already set to prevail, or will something else trump Trump and Akufo-Addo, two men who's destiny seems inexplicably linked?

Blue Sky Thinking: An asteroid hits the earth and a post apocalyptic 2021 is on the horizon. Well this is in fact closer to reality than you might think. We’ve just learned that “an asteroid is headed our way right before Election Day” (CNN, 2020), and so on November 4 and December 8, the mornings after the election nights before, should what’s left of humanity expect to see robust, beneficial intelligence leading the world, or will it be time re-install the robot in all of us to pursue ”Robust and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence” (Hawking et al., 2015) as a solution to the impending apocalypse? Depending upon who wins in 2020, the new world order in a post apocalyptic 2021 will either be AI driven or FI driven.

Until then, as the analyst in me powers down, may I suggest that the human in you looks to the artist formerly known as Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García for further inspiration when pondering these, the most important elections in Africa's history. Enter stage left Ms Gloria Estefan and, turn it, turn it up loud: