Do US Election outcomes influence Ghana's election results at all costs? Here are the facts

While in Ghana, a direct popular vote of 50% plus 1 determines the winner of the presidential election, the US practices the Electoral College system which refers to the group of presidential electors required by the United States Constitution to form every four years for the sole purpose of electing the president and vice president.

Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution provides that each state shall “appoint” electors selected in a manner its legislature determines, and it disqualifies any person holding a federal office, either elected or appointed, from being an elector. There are currently 538 electors, and an absolute majority of electoral votes, 270 or more, is required to win the election.

Despite the above contrast, history from the year 1992 to 2016 shows that the winning and losing patterns in both Ghana and the US have been on the same trajectory.

In the year 1992, Democratic Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas defeated incumbent Republican US President George H. W. Bush. In that year, Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings of the National Democratic Congress was for the first time democratically elected as president of Ghana after being head of state through coup d'états for years before adopting democratic rule in 1992.

Then, in 1996, when US Incumbent Democratic President Bill Clinton was reelected, defeating former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, the Republican nominee, Jerry John Rawlings was also retained by Ghanaians.

In 2000, Republican candidate George W. Bush, the governor of Texas and eldest son of the 41st president, George H. W. Bush, won the election, defeating Democratic nominee Al Gore, the incumbent vice president. It was the fourth of five presidential elections in which the winning candidate lost the popular vote and is considered one of the closest elections in US history.

It was in that same year that John Agyekum Kuffour of the New Patriotic Party also unseated Jerry John Rawlings of the National Democratic Congress.

Then, in 2004, the incumbent George W. Bush and his running mate Vice President Dick Cheney were reelected in the US, defeating the Democratic ticket of John Kerry, a United States Senator from Massachusetts and his running mate John Edwards, a United States Senator from North Carolina.

Interestingly, Ghanaians too voted for John Agyekum Kuffour to serve a second term, defeating the now late John Evans Atta Mills of the NDC.

Then, when power exchanged hands in the US in the year 2008, the same thing happened in Ghana too.

The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior U.S. Senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior U.S. Senator from Delaware, defeated the Republican ticket of John McCain, the senior Senator from Arizona, and Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska.

Ghanaians also voted the NPP government out of office by rejecting its candidate, the now president of the republic Nana Akufo Addo and gave the mandate to John Evans Atta Mills.

As US citizens re-elected the Barrack Obama-led government to a second term in 2012, rejecting the Republican ticket of businessman and former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Ghanaians too renewed the mandate of NDC government led by John Dramani Mahama, the then vice president who had to take over from his boss, the late Evans Atta Mills following his demise while in office.

And then finally, in 2016, history repeated itself again in both the US and Ghana as the Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana Governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and U.S. senator from Virginia Tim Kaine.

Again, Ghanaians too voted out the John Mahama-led NDC, giving the now incumbent NPP’s Nana Akufo Addo the chance to govern after failing twice to win.

Despite all the facts stated above, it remains to be seen if Donald Trump will be retained by the US citizens as voting is underway, and how the retention of the historical pattern or otherwise will play out in Ghana too.