Why Electoral Reforms are Urgently Needed in Ghana

Abstract

In this article, I examine the breathtakingly wide scope of executive power and the low threshold for electoral victory in Ghana's constitution. I demonstrate how the ‘first past the post’ electoral formula colludes with the ‘winner takes all’ government configuration to saddle Ghana with a corruption-fuelled governance crisis that could escalate over time to be an existential threat to the longest-lasting democratic period Ghana has ever known. I assert that electoral reform to provide for consociational government is the only feasible way to simultaneously lessen the starkness of electoral loss and create some public accountability loops, the absence of which have made corruption both easy and unpunishable.