Jerry John Rawlings (22 June 1947 - 12 November 2020) was a Ghanaian military officer, aviator, and politician who significantly shaped the country's trajectory. He led Ghana briefly in 1979 and then from 1981 to 2001.
Jerry John Rawlings
Early Life and Military Career
Rawlings was born in 1947 in Accra, Ghana, to a Ghanaian mother, Victoria Agbotui, and a Scottish father, James Ramsey John. He attended Achimota School and a military academy at Teshie. In 1967, he enlisted in the Ghanaian air force. He secured a pilot’s license in 1969. He ultimately was promoted to flight officer (1971) and flight lieutenant (1978). During his service, Rawlings perceived a deterioration in discipline and morale due to corruption in the Supreme Military Council (SMC).
The 1979 Coup and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC)
Rawlings first appeared on the Ghanaian political scene on May 15, 1979, when he led an unsuccessful coup attempt against the ruling military government. He was arrested and court-martialed. However, before he could be executed, another group of junior officers overthrew the government on June 4, 1979, and installed him as head of the new government - the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC).
Rawlings wasted no time in ridding Ghana of its former power structure. The three former military dictators were executed, along with five other generals, and most senior officers were dismissed. Having completed the purge, Rawlings organized free elections. On September 24, 1979, power was peacefully handed over by Rawlings to President Hilla Limann.
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The Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) and Economic Policies
Two years later, on 31 December 1981, Rawlings ousted President Hilla Limann in a coup d'état, claiming that civilian rule was weak and the country's economy was deteriorating. From 1981 to 1993, Rawlings governed under the auspices of the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC).
Initially, Rawlings experimented with production and price controls and workers’ councils. However, by 1983, he reversed course and adopted conservative economic policies, including dropping subsidies and price controls in order to reduce inflation, privatizing many state-owned companies, and devaluing the currency in order to stimulate exports. As the economy began to stabilize, and with assistance for economic recovery given by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, Rawlings began instituting more conservative fiscal policies.
He also created 110 districts that elected officials with policy-making powers in areas such as health, education, and general public welfare. He then decided that multiparty national elections had long been overdue. He resigned his military commission to shed the image of military dictator.
Transition to Democracy and the Fourth Republic
In 1992, Rawlings resigned from the military, founded the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and successfully ran for president in that year's election, becoming the first president of the Fourth Republic. When elections were held in 1992, Rawlings ran as a candidate from the National Defense Council (NDC), the successor party to the PNDC. Rawlings won with more than 58 percent of the vote, and NDC candidates won nearly 95 percent of the parliamentary seats in an election judged free and fair by foreign observers but denounced as fraught with irregularities by opposition candidates.
Running for a second term in 1996, Rawlings instituted fairer registration processes. Rawlings’s victory in the 1996 election was partly the result of opposition coalition parties failing to select joint candidates in a timely manner. His victory was also the product of solid support in rural areas where heavy investments were made in improving the infrastructure and delivering basic services such as potable water and electricity.
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Rawlings' victory was aided by the various party structures that were integrated into society during his rule, called the "organs of the revolution".
Given the various issues with the 1992 elections, the 1996 elections were a great improvement in terms of electoral oversight. Voter registration was re-compiled, with close to 9.2 million voters registering at nearly 19,000 polling stations, which the opposition had largely approved after party agents had reviewed the lists. The emphasis on transparency led Ghanaian non-governmental organizations to create the Network of Domestic Election Observers (NEDEO), which trained nearly 4,100 local poll watchers.
The two major contenders of the 1996 election were Rawlings' NDC, and John Kufuor's Great Alliance, an amalgamation of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the People's Convention Party (PCP). The Electoral Commission reported that Rawlings had won by 57%, with Kufuor obtaining 40% of the vote.
The 1992 constitution limits a president to two terms, even if they are nonconsecutive. Rawlings did not attempt to amend the document to allow him to run for a third term in 2000. He retired in 2001 and was succeeded by John Kufuor, his main rival and opponent in 1996.
Why Jerry Rawlings Staged a Bloody Coup in 1979
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Post-Presidency and Legacy
After two terms in office, the limit according to the Ghanaian Constitution, Rawlings endorsed his vice-president John Atta Mills as a presidential candidate in 2000. In October 2010, Rawlings was named as the African Union envoy to Somalia.
With the exception of Kwame Nkrumah, no political leader has had a greater impact on Ghana as Jerry John Rawlings. In a region permeated with incessant civil wars, rampant corruption, brutal dictatorship, and continued economic deterioration, he used a mild form of military dictatorship to reduce civil unrest and produce economic stability. At the right time, though perhaps in a two-step movement, he presided over the transition to democratic government.
Rawlings was the dominant factor in Ghanian politics for more than twenty years, virtually dismantling the conventional political establishment to uplift the lower classes.
Key figures in Ghana's history during Rawlings's era:
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Jerry John Rawlings | Head of State (1979, 1981-1993), President (1993-2001) |
| Hilla Limann | President of Ghana (1979-1981) |
| Kofi Abrefa Busia | Prime Minister of Ghana (1969-1972) |
| Frederick Akuffo | Head of the Supreme Military Council (1978-1979) |
| John Atta-Mills | Rawlings’s vice president and handpicked successor |
| John Kufuor | President of Ghana beginning in 2001 |
| Kwame Nkrumah | First president of Ghana (1960-1966) |
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