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CWA # 1569, 16 January 2025
NIAS Africa Studies
Ghana elections: A Smooth Democratic Transition Amidst Systemic Issues

  Ayan Datta

Ghana’s 2024 general elections, wherein National Democratic Congress (NDC) leader John Mahama secured a second term in office against former Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia of the incumbent New Patriotic Party (NPP). The elections marked the continuation of the country’s chequered legacy of peaceful democratic transitions coexisting with systemic and economic issues. Mahama, who won 56 per cent of the vote against Mahamudu’s 42 per cent, virtually swept the polls, emerging in 13 out of Ghana’s 16 regions, with the NDC’s landslide win, reflecting the intense anti-incumbency wave against the NPP’s eight-year reign. Despite the NPP’s strong show in the populous and youth-dominated Ashanti and Eastern provinces, public discontent over their mismanagement of the economy and bureaucracy proved too strong, causing the incumbents to suffer massive losses in its former strongholds as well as swing regions. In the Central Region, a province that the NPP had won in 2020 by over 70,000 votes, Mahama’s NDC turned the tables, winning by around 180,000 votes. Western Region, another swing province previously won by NPP, produced a similar turnaround, with NDC winning by over 100,000 votes. Furthermore, the NDC emerged victorious in the Eastern Region, a supposed NPP stronghold, further capitalising on the anti-incumbency sentiment. 

Ghana, which reverted from military to democratic rule in 1992, has thus far carried out six democratic and peaceful changes of government, making it a success story in democratic resilience and consolidation in formerly authoritarian polities. Despite having a multi-party arrangement, the country’s democratic political contest became a de-facto two-party dominant system owing to its reliance on first-past-the-post, single constituency elections, which discourages third parties from succeeding. The recently concluded polls marked the most recent turnover of power between the NDC and NPP, which have collectively ruled Ghana for over 30 years. Despite the resounding majority for Mahama, the turnout rate dropped to 60 per cent from 79 per cent in 2020, reflecting rising voter apathy in the light of unresolved systemic issues. 

What were the major issues?
First, unemployment and economic crisis. Despite the NPP claiming that they created millions of jobs during their eight-year reign, polling agency Global Info Analytica, which successfully predicted Bawumia’s defeat, found that dissatisfaction with unemployment remained a high priority for the youth. With almost 15 per cent of Ghana’s mostly young labour force facing joblessness between 2016 and 2024, first-time voters became frustrated with the NPP’s rule. The sentiment was reflected in the testimony of one NDC supporter, who said: “Today feels like we have gained independence again; John Mahama has liberated us from oppression.” 

Macroeconomic issues, including a 40 per cent inflation rate (2024) and USD 55 billion public debt, massively exacerbated the pains of unemployment, causing the prices of daily necessities like eggs and tomatoes to rise by over 100 per cent, making it difficult for the state to create jobs or undertake welfare spending, and most importantly, contributing to discontent against the NPP. The government, for its part, has been unimaginative in tackling these issues, leading to discontent towards both established parties. With the NPP being forced to seek a USD three billion IMF bailout in 2023, around 20 per cent of Ghanaian voters expressed dislike for both parties, indicating that political apathy may rise if the dominant parties continue to fail in addressing economic issues. 

Second, disputes over election results. With its first-past-the-post mechanism and single-member constituencies, Ghana's electoral system has produced a “winner-takes-all” incentive structure. With parliamentary and presidential elections held simultaneously, the victorious party usually wins both the Presidency and the Parliament, leaving the losers with little political power despite the latter often spending equally exorbitant amounts as the incumbent on buying votes and running campaigns. This high cost of losing elections in the FPTP system incentivises Ghana's losing parties to question the electoral process as a last-ditch effort to maintain power, even at the cost of eroding trust in the country's democratic procedures and institutions. Ghana's 2011, 2012 and 2020 elections were marred by disputes, with incumbent Presidents refusing to transfer power to victors until compelled by judicial pronouncements. Although 2024 marked an encouraging departure from this trend, with Bawumia’s concession enhancing trust in the electoral process, disputes over election results continued at the parliamentary level, with the Electoral Commission (EC) ordering recounts in nine parliamentary constituencies. Although the recounts were instructed by the judiciary, the NDC leadership branded the verdict as politically motivated, partisan and illegal, even threatening to interrogate the EC officials involved. While the smooth transfer of Presidential power marked a victory for Ghana's democratic consolidation, the recount and NDC incumbents' refusal to accept the recounted parliamentary results reflected the persistent use of electoral disputes and their corrosive effect on the quality of democracy. 

Third, endemic corruption. Although analysts framed Mahama’s victory as a protest vote against what the NDC National Communications Officer, Sammy Gyamfi, termed as the NPP’s “eight years of corruption and state capture,” corruption remains a systemic issue in Ghanaian politics, with both parties being reluctant to confront it seriously. The aforementioned “winner-takes-all” system also incentivises corruption within political parties and the bureaucracy. Since election victory gives winners access to state resources and sources of patronage, including official and party appointments, kickbacks, and government contracts, both parties indulge in corrupt election-related practices, especially vote-buying, to attain power. A 2023 report by the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GCAC) found that prospective leaders routinely bribed their party notables to win intra-party elections and become parliamentary and presidential candidates to the extent that the practice has become an open secret and accepted political practice. 

With corruption within parties being routine and endemic, Ghana's office-holders are reluctant to check illicit practices among the public officials who assist them, leading to widespread corruption in the bureaucracy. In the lead-up to the election, both parties followed an unspoken pact, refusing to focus on the corruption issue despite promising economic recovery. Furthermore, recent public accounts reports by Ghana's Auditor General (AG) revealed massive “financial irregularities” in the government's official payrolls, taxation, procurement and contract accounts, reflecting the lack of political will to tackle corruption among the higher officialdom. The AG's report pegged the sum of irregularities at GHS 15 billion (USD one billion) between 2018 and 2022, a period which saw both NDC and NPP governments, thereby exposing the bipartisan consensus between Ghana's two major parties on leaving corruption unaddressed while silently benefitting from it. 

What does it mean?
Mahama’s defeat made Ghana the fifth African state to witness an opposition victory in 2024. The West African state joined the ranks of Botswana, Mauritius, Senegal and the breakaway Somaliland, where democratic political conditions have coincided with economic stagnation and rising corruption. The rise of well-organised opposition parties and well-institutionalised party systems has been crucial for democratic survival in these countries, with opposition parties becoming popular conduits of popular discontent against incumbents’ failure to deliver the economic dividends of democracy. Although Ghana’s peaceful transition of power is a welcome development amidst the prevalence of military coups and illiberal democracies, its low turnout represents an alarming trend. The steep decline in voter participation confirmed Afrobarometer's finding that the continent’s citizens, while considering elections an effective mechanism for selecting leaders and a net improvement over military rule, are also gradually losing faith in democratic processes as a means for improving their material conditions, causing them to be increasingly apathetic.  

About the author
Ayan Datta is a postgraduate student at the Univerisity of Hyderabad.

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