THE GHANAIAN ELECTIONS OF 1996: TOWARDS THE CONSOLIDATION OF DEMOCRACY?

Abstract

Foreign donors expended over $23 million on micro-managing the December 1996 Ghanaian elections in an attempt to ensure that the process was technically 'free and fair'. Owing partly to this expenditure and partly to the efficiency and impartiality of the Electoral Commission, the conduct of the elections was in fact remarkably technically correct. The losing opposition parties still complained, however, that President Rawlings and his party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), exploited the advantages of incumbency to a degree that rendered the result 'free but not really fair'. The article argues that such very limited acceptance of election results, however justified or unjustified, is almost bound to obtain in economically underdeveloped African societies where, partly for structural and partly for cultural reason, politics continues to be very much a zero-sum game characterized by high levels of distrust. This in turn suggests limits to the likely consolidation of multi-party democracy. The article also analyses the reasons for the electoral victory of Rawlings and the NDC, arguing that it hinged on the rural population's trust in Rawlings' ability to provide rural development and political stability. ON 7 DECEMBER 1996 GHANAIANS went to the polls to choose both parliamentary representatives and an Executive President. This was the second set of elections in Ghana's most recent experiment with multi-party democracy. The presidential elections of November 1992 and the parliamentary elections of December 1992 had returned the country to constitutional rule after ten years under the unelected military-cum-civilian Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) government headed by Jerry Rawlings.1 The outcome of the 1992 presidential elections had been hotly disputed, however, by the opposition parties; so much so that they decided to boycott the following month's parliamentary elections. In consequence, the ruling party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), controlled virtually all (189 out of 200) seats in parliament during the first four years of the Fourth Republic. This had not proved incompatible with Dr Richard Jeffries is Lecturer in Politics with reference to Africa at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is currently preparing a book on electoral politics in Ghana. 1. See Richard Jeffries and Clare Thomas, 'The Ghanaian Elections of 1992', African Affiairs, 92, 368 July 1993), pp. 331-366.