Political Party Brand Management in Ghana

Abstract

Ghana’s political brands are maturing with its democracy along the lines of global practices. Emerging evidence suggest that political parties in Ghana are managing political brands architecture of party, candidate and policy brands in a far more sophisticated manner in order to meet the growing complexities of the political market. This chapter focuses on the party brand, where the traditional approach has been that ideology is at the centre, has given way to a modernised party brand responsive to contemporary voter needs. The modernised party brand also reflects the needs of other electorally relevant stakeholders. Using in-depth interviews of party officials, media analysts and academics in the subject area, the chapter looks at how the case party in Ghana, the New Patriotic Party, adapted its ideological positions to issues, and in the process moved into and took ownership of the policy terrain of its competitor party. The party used its heritage and ideological identity as anchor to underpin its engagement on democracy and good governance and deliberately reduced its voice on hard core neoliberal economic policies. In addition, internal discipline was enforced as means to regulate leadership attitude, behaviour and communication in order to steer a shift towards the centre of the Ghanaian political market.