Larry S. Gibson will be jetting off to Ghana Wednesday night to give a presidential candidate closing days’ advice in advance of the African nation’s election on Sunday.
It’s a trip that Gibson, a University of Maryland law professor and attorney in Baltimore, has made several times in recent months on behalf of candidate Nana Akufo-Addo. And Ghana marks the third country in sub-Saharan Africa where Gibson has advised candidates for top office since 2001.
His previous clients, in Madagascar and Liberia, won their elections, and prospects look good for Akufo-Addo, whose platform stresses education and health care.
Before taking his campaign consulting to the skies, Gibson ran the successful campaigns of former Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke in 1987, 1991 and 1995.
Though Baltimore and Africa are a world apart, one thing about campaigns remains the same, said Gibson, who is of counsel at Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler.
“It is amazing how similar people are worldwide in what they want from their leaders,” he said. “People vote for people they like. That’s universal.”
As a result, Gibson added, the more successful candidates are not necessarily those with the most popular policies. Rather, winning politicians are those who relate on a personal level with the electorate.
“Policies are important, but for elections people want a sense of the person,” Gibson said.
“Far more important is the assessment of what type of person this is,” he added. “The voters understand that they are electing a person more than they are electing a program. That’s universal.”
On message
Gibson’s current client, Akufo-Addo, has taken the lead in most polls over his closest challenger, John Atta Mills, according to AllAfrica Global Media, which distributes news from the continent. Akufo-Addo is a member of the incumbent New Patriotic Party while Mills belongs to the National Democratic Congress.
Gibson said his title within the Akufo-Addo campaign is “senior political consultant” but he is largely mum about the specifics of his work on the candidate’s behalf, or even if he is being paid for his work, leaving such disclosures to Akufo-Addo’s discretion.
Gibson did say that his task during the approximately six months he has worked on the campaign — and his near monthly trips to Ghana — has been to keep the candidate “on message” with regard to education and health.
“He never gives a single speech without explaining that those are his top priorities,” Gibson said.
The campaign’s slogan is “we’re moving forward,” Gibson added. Pressed on whether the slogan was his idea, Gibson said only that “sometimes a little outside assistance can get things focused.”
Gibson would not mention how long he will remain in Ghana, saying only he will return “after the election.” Nor would Gibson disclose who contacted him to participate in the campaign, saying only that this person was familiar with his work on the other African campaigns.
That campaign consulting began in Madagascar in 2001, when his candidate, Marc Ravalomanana, rode a campaign slogan of “Build roads for Madagascar” to defeat incumbent Didier Ratsiraka in a close, disputed election. Gibson said he is especially proud of that victory because a challenger defeated an incumbent in a relatively peaceful transfer of power on a continent with a history of military coups.
“You don’t know you have a democracy until a challenger beats the incumbent,” Gibson said. “This is orderly change of government without anybody getting killed.”
In Liberia in 2005, Gibson advised Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf during her successful campaign to become the first elected female head of state in Africa. He was credited with insisting that she does not appear in a traditional African headdress while campaigning.
“I thought it was important visually to say it’s a new day — a new day — for African women,” Gibson told The Associated Press after Sirleaf’s victory.
Karen H. Rothenberg, dean of the University of Maryland School of Law, said Gibson’s campaign work in Africa translates well to the classroom, where he teaches election law.
“It just enables the students to have real-world experience” through Gibson’s recounting of his experiences, Rothenberg said. Gibson’s campaign consulting in Baltimore and abroad provides “a very unique perspective that he is able to share with them to give them comparative analysis,” she added.
In Ghana, Gibson said, he has experienced an electorate that holds its politicians in high regard, with both major candidates enjoying favorability ratings of at least 70 percent. American candidates would “give their eye teeth” for such popularity, he said.
Gibson said his interest in sub-Saharan Africa extends back to 1973, when he attended the first Liberian judicial conference. However, he said he was loath to return to the region until about 2000, due to the political unrest — including a 1980 coup in Liberia — that afflicted the continent from the 1970s through the 1990s.
“When they started having those coups … I changed my interest to South America,” Gibson said. “I am allergic to AK-47s.”
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