Abstract
This article reviews the electoral reform initiative which began in 1994. It notes that electoral reforms in Ghana have been at the elite’s instigation. Hence they have coalesced around elite bargaining and consensus. In 1994, the Inter-party Advisory Committee (IPAC) was inaugurated to fashion new rules of the game to direct the electoral process. The reform settled the elite disagreements over the future of Ghana’s democracy, which generated mass and elite confidence in the electoral process. Yet, the reform has failed to address new challenges including fair representation of the people in the legislature/Parliament and uneven playing field caused by the exploitation of incumbency in the use of state resource for campaigns thereby stifling effective inter-party competition. Furthermore, the politics of winner-takes-all has worked to obstruct the capacity of the smaller parties to participate in politics in a fledgling democracy in Africa where inclusive participation is highly recommended. A re-apportionment of constituency boundaries to reflect fair representation and review of the party financing laws to provide opportunity for opposition parties to access resources would deepen Ghana’s multiparty politics and democracy.
Highlights
Ghana has received praise for promoting “quality” democracy in Africa
In order to obtain the views of the architects of the electoral reform project, the researcher adopted the purposive sampling method which ensured that 10 staff of the Electoral Commission (EC), 16 political parties’ officials comprising 5 each from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP), and 3 each from the Convention People’s Party (CPP) and People National Convention (PNC) were chosen for interviews
Electoral reform in Ghana has served as the focal point for the overwhelming wave of successful elections and democratic stabilization in contrast to elsewhere in Africa where there is growing ill-feeling of election failures that had led to ethnic crashes and general political violence
Summary
Ghana has received praise for promoting “quality” democracy in Africa. It has successfully carried out six peaceful and relatively free and fair elections even though the founding election of 1992 produced a bizarre outcome. The free environment has instigated vibrant media activities and the promotion of human freedom and development (Gyimah-Boadi, 2004: 2) These notwithstanding, there is a general perception that the electoral process has not been robust to instill voter confidence in the six general elections. In recent media discussions and popular commentaries issues regarding delimitation, system manipulations and collusion of the staff of the election management body have featured prominently (Note 2). These pertinent concerns have implications for achieving credible elections.
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