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Abstract
In the light of the successful and peaceful outcome of the December 2008 elections in Ghana, inclusive of the second transfer of power between political parties since the return to democratic rule in 1992, this paper considers whether Ghana can now be regarded as a consolidated democracy. To undertake this assessment, Linz and Stepan's multidimensional framework of democratic consolidation is adopted, and their three dimensions and five arenas of democratic consolidation are explored. Findings demonstrate that although significant progress has been made towards democratic consolidation in Ghana, there are aspects of consolidation that remain weak. Thus it would be premature to state that democratic consolidation has been achieved in Ghana. With regard to the prospects for sustained consolidation, the closeness that Ghana came to political violence during the fraught election period is highlighted, indicating a latent threat to future democratic stability. Additionally, a number of constraints and challenges are identified in various arenas of consolidation, inclusive of the limited policy influence of civil society organizations, the marginalization of women, excessive executive/presidential powers, the adverse impact of external actors on democratic sovereignty, and the implications for democratic sustainability of a continued failure to address gross socio-economic inequalities. Without addressing such issues, Ghana's democratic gains may turn out to be a rather hollow triumph.
Notes
Of the remaining nine seats, Independent candidates won four, the People's National Convention (PNC) won two seats and the Convention People's Party (CPP) won one seat. The electoral processes in two constituencies (Asutifi South and Akwatia) were immediately contested in the courts and therefore results not declared. At the time of writing, the Asutifi South case had been resolved and the NDC candidate declared the winner, taking the party's total to 115 out of 230 seats, while the Akwatia case still remained under legal scrutiny.
Gyimah-Boadi, A Peaceful Turnover in Ghana, 104; Smith, Ghana's 2000 Elections, 519; Boafo-Arthur, Democracy and Stability in West Africa, 36. Such progress is also indicated by the shift in Freedom House's ratings of Ghana, soaring from a low of six on both political and civil liberties in 1993 to a high of 1 on political liberties and 2 on civil liberties in 2009. Freedom House, Freedom in Sub-Saharan Africa 2009, 13.
Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation.
Ibid.
Huntington, The Third Wave.
Mainwaring, O'Donnell, and Valenzuela, Issues in Democratic Consolidation; Gunther, Diamandouros, and Puhle, The Politics of Democratic Consolidation; O'Donnell, ‘Illusions about Consolidation’.
If democratic consolidation were simply about the survival of a democratic regime, as initially conceived, then Ghana would have passed that test.
Schedler, ‘What is Democratic Consolidation?’, 91.
Gunther, Diamandouros, and Puhle, ‘The Politics of Democratic Consolidation’, 7.
Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition.
Cited in Rose and Shin, ‘Democratisation Backwards’, 334. Dahl's notion of polyarchy, regarded as the minimum definition of actual existing democracy in the West, had seven components: free and fair elections; elected officials; inclusive suffrage; the right to run for office; freedom of expression; alternative sources of information (to those of the state); and associational autonomy, see Dahl, Democracy and its Critics, 221.
Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, 5 (emphasis in original).
Schedler, ‘What is Democratic Consolidation’, 93.
Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, 5.
Ibid., 7.
Przeworski, Democracy and the Market, interprets this as meaning that no significant group of people in society can imagine acting politically outside of democratic institutions, while losers just want to try again within the same institutions.
Ibid., 5.
Ibid.
Diamond, Developing Democracy, 302, note 11.
Shin and Wells, ‘Challenge and Change in East Asia’, 89–90.
Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, 6; Schmitter, ‘Clarifying Consolidation’, 170–1, notes the rather strange use of the term ‘constitutional’, given that ‘many of the most important … core procedures of any democracy are not included in a formal and unique document’ (i.e. the constitution).
Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, 6.
Ibid., 7.
Schmitter, ‘Clarifying Consolidation’, 171.
Beetham, ‘Conditions of Democratic Consolidation’, 160.
Huntington, The Third Wave, 267.
Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, 5.
In the 28 December run-off, citizens from the Tain Constituency in the Brong Ahafo Region could not vote due to the inability of the Electoral Commission to provide the constituency with adequate election materials on time. In agreement with the two parties, the EC decided to hold the vote in Tain on 2 January, as the difference between the two presidential candidates was so small (23,055 votes) that the results in Tain could change the outcome, given that Tain had a total voter population of 53,890.
In numerical terms, Ata Mills of the NDC obtained a total of 4,521,032 votes while Akufo-Addo received 4,480,446.
Boafo-Arthur, ‘Democracy and Stability in West Africa’, 50.
The ruling NPP lost the election to the NDC by a mere margin of just 40,586 out of a total of about nine million votes cast, representing less than 0.5% of the total votes.
The nature of the electioneering campaigns, particularly after the first round of voting on 7 December 2008, was so acrimonious that The Chronicle newspaper noted in its editorial of 22 December 2008 that: ‘both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC) appear to be on the path to destroying the image of this country … They have resorted to countless accusations against each other, to the extent that they have even roped in the integrity of the EC … With their public utterances, they are trying to incite their followers, to protest against the final results’ (quoted in IDEG and CFI, 5).
EU Election Observation Mission, ‘Ghana Final Report’, 29.
Ghana has electoral procedures that contribute significantly to the transparency of election results. Votes are counted and collated at each polling station in a constituency, with party representatives required to append their signatures, confirming that they certify the results to be accurate. These certified results are countersigned by an EC official present. The official results from each polling station then goes to the constituency headquarters where they are logged onto a sheet with all polling station results before being faxed to a central point at the Electoral Commission's headquarters in Accra, called the EC ‘strong room’. All participating political parties have representatives in the strong room to observe the final collation of the results. Again, the political party representatives have to sign off on the figures as they are tallied by Commission staff.
In each of these constituencies, namely Bantama, Kwadaso, Manhyia, Nhyiaeso, and Suame, turnout was unusually high, reaching over 95% of registered voters (EU EOM, ‘Ghana Final Report’, 29).
See Boateng, ‘The Election 2008 Story’.
See Joy FM News, ‘Looking at Election 2008’.
President Kufuor's statement was very significant and a clear signal to his party that defeat would be accepted and not to engage in violence. But why was he prepared to concede defeat in this way? Various explanations are possible. First, perhaps Kufuor was concerned that his legacy would be tainted by widespread violence, especially when he might have been looking forward to a future high-level position in an intergovernmental organization. Second, there was significant pressure on him from both domestic civil society and international actors, notably the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), to avoid violence. Finally, Akufo-Addo, the NPP presidential candidate, was not his chosen successor, which may have reduced Kufuor's commitment to ensuring his election. Although such explanations are speculative, Kufuor's decision to give this clear signal to his party may have been informed by a combination of these reasons.
Ayelazuno, ‘The 2008 Ghanaian Elections: The Narrow Escape’.
Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, 5.
For summaries of the results of the four surveys, see Bratton, Lewis, and Gyimah-Boadi, ‘Attitudes to Democracy and Markets in Ghana’; Gyimah-Boadi and Mensah, ‘The Growth of Democracy in Ghana’; Afrobarometer, ‘Despite Reforms’; CDD-Ghana, ‘Popular Attitudes to Democracy in Ghana’.
CDD-Ghana, ‘Popular Attitudes to Democracy in Ghana’, 3.
Significantly, popular rejection of these non-democratic forms of government has remained very high among Ghanaians in all rounds of the Afrobarometer survey, never dropping below 79% since 1999 (CDD-Ghana, ‘Popular Attitudes to Democracy in Ghana’, 3–4).
Gyimah-Boadi and Mensah, ‘The Growth of Democracy in Ghana’, 8, 27. Similarly, Ghana scored the highest (75%) amongst 12 African countries on support for democracy in the Round 3 Afrobarometer survey conducted in 2005 (Gadzekpo, ‘The Difficulties of Democratic Deepening’, 4).
This argument is partly supported by the fact that only 7% of respondents in the Round 2 survey chose the statement that ‘a non-democratic government might be preferable in some circumstances’, with a further 10% taking the view that the form of government does not matter to them.
Figures on the turnout rates in the 1992, 1996, and 2004 presidential elections are adopted from Boafo-Arthur, ‘Democracy and Stability in West Africa’. Those for 2000 are from Smith, ‘Ghana's 2000 Elections’, 523. The turnout figures on the 2008 elections are taken from the EU EOM, ‘Ghana Final Report’, 30.
Coordinated by the Institute for Democratic Governance, the CFI had a diverse membership, including the National Commission on Civic Education, the Christian Council of Ghana, the Catholic Secretariat, the Ghana Trade Union Congress (TUC), the West African Network for Peace (WANEP), the Office of the National Chief Imam, and the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), among others.
EU EOM, ‘Ghana Final Report’, 21.
CDD-Ghana, ‘Popular Attitudes to Democracy in Ghana’, 7.
CODEO, ‘Pre-election Violence and Irregularities Worries Watchdog’. The limited voter registration exercise was organized by the EC from 31 July to 12 August 2008, to register Ghanaians who had turned 18 after the previous registration, and to give an opportunity to Ghanaians who for excusable reasons did not have their names on the electoral roll.
In the words of Gyimah-Boadi, ‘both parties shamelessly attempted to mobilize ethnic votes, virtually declaring their respective strongholds – the Ashanti Region for the NPP and the Volta Region for the NDC – as “no-go” zones for their opponents’ (Gymiah-Boadi, ‘Another Step Forward for Ghana’, 141). See also CDD-Ghana, ‘Tensions, Conflicts and Violence’, 1.
Jockers et al., ‘The Successful Ghana Election of 2008’, 10.
For a more detailed information on results of doubtful validity from the Ashanti and Volta Regions, see Jockers et al., ‘The Successful Ghana Election of 2008’, Tables 1 & 2, 24.
Ibid., 10.
For example, in the 2008 elections, as in previous elections, the NDC captured 21 out of 22 parliamentary seats in Volta Region, once described by Jerry Rawlings, founder of the party, as the NDC's ‘World Bank’, while the NPP secured 36 out of 39 seats in the Ashanti Region. The outcome of the presidential run-off election in these two regions was not significantly different, with the NDC and NPP capturing 86.06% and 74.99% of total valid votes in the Volta and Ashanti Regions respectively. For a detailed interpretation of the 2008 election results, see Whitfield, ‘Change for a Better Ghana’.
Corroborating this argument, Boafo-Arthur notes that, ‘Ghanaians are incurably political and they cherish going to the polls to pick those to rule them. Exercising their franchise has become part of their political existence’. Boafo-Arthur, ‘Democracy and Stability in West Africa’, 40.
Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, 6.
For detailed discussions on potentially destabilizing election-related conflicts that had been resolved by the courts since the 1992 elections, see Boafo-Arthur, ‘Democracy and Stability in West Africa’, 20–36.
IDEG and CFI, ‘Ghana's December 7, 2008 Elections’, 5.
A day prior to the Tain special run-off, leaders of the NPP filed an ex parte motion in an Accra Fast Track High Court seeking an injunction to delay the Tain election and suspend the declaration of presidential results until allegations of electoral fraud conducted by the NDC in the Volta Region were fully investigated. However, due to the overriding interest involving the application, the judge ordered that the interested parties, the NDC and the Electoral Commission, be notified and given a right of response before a ruling could be made. However, the parties were never served and in the absence of a court order, the Electoral Commission declared the results less than 24 hours after the Tain special election. The NPP also withdrew its legal suit, but pulled out of the Tain special election citing security concerns which would undermine the transparency of the elections.
EU EOM, ‘Ghana Final Report’, 28.
See note 1.
In the case of Asutifi, the NPP parliamentary candidate filed a motion at the High Court to restrain the EC from declaring the results due to alleged electoral malpractices and won the petition. Dissatisfied with the ruling, the NDC parliamentary candidate appealed the decision in the Supreme Court, asking it to set aside the High Court's decision on the grounds that the application filed by the NPP candidate was unlawful. The electoral stand-off in the constituency came to an end only on 8 April 2009, when the Supreme Court quashed the High Court's decision on the basis of Section 18 (1) of PNDC Law 284. Following from this, the parliamentary results were re-collated, and the NDC candidate declared winner of the seat with a slim margin of only 14 votes (Daily Graphic, ‘Collins Dauda wins Asutifi South Seat’, 3). The Akwatia seat was also not declared after 7 December, and remains the only undeclared seat (at the time of writing) due to similar disagreements over the election results, leading to a prolonged court case. Asutifi South and Akwatia constituencies are located in the Brong Ahafo and Eastern Regions respectively. For details on the disputes over the Akwatia Parliamentary seat, see Ghana News Agency (GNA), ‘Electoral Offenders Before Court’ and ‘Koforidua High Court Dismisses NPP Application’.
In nine of the regions, a system was established at the High Courts comprising at least two judges from the High Courts to ensure the effective and speedy resolution of petitions pertaining to the parliamentary elections, while a further three Fast track High Courts in the Greater Accra Region were assigned this role (EU EOM, ‘Ghana Final Report’, 27). Other measures taken in preparation towards the election included the modification of existing dockets to give priority to election cases, establishing special branches to hear election-related cases, and approving weekend work hours for the courts.
These developments have been remarkable because one major obstacle regarding electoral dispute resolution in Ghana has been the low confidence of political parties and their supporters in the ability of the courts to provide timely responses to election-related complaints. Indeed, the 1996 parliamentary elections were marred by high-profile election disputes that remained in adjudication for the full term of the legislative seats, only for the courts to rule, rather late, that the wrong person had been in Parliament.
These include the Mamprusi-Kusasi conflict in Bawku in the Upper East Region, the Ga Chieftaincy disputes in the Greater Accra Region, the Anlo State chieftaincy dispute in the Volta Region, and the Bimbilla chieftaincy dispute in the Northern Region, among others.
It is important to stress, however, that the Dagbon crisis has long historical roots, dating back to the 1920s (Fayemi, Jaye, and Yeboo, ‘Democracy, Security and Poverty in Ghana’).
Although both the Abudus and Andanis are Dagombas (the largest ethnic group in the Northern Region), they represent two different factions or ‘gates’ to the Dagbon paramount seat.
Fayemi, Jaye, and Yeboo, ‘Democracy, Security and Poverty in Ghana’, 68. During the 2000 electioneering campaigns, rumours concerning the murder of the Ya Na, who belonged to the Andani ‘gate’, were widespread in the event of an NPP victory. The murder of the king in March 2002, only a year after the NPP had come to power, was therefore interpreted by some sections of the public to have been masterminded by some leading members of the NPP as a trade-off for Abudu electoral support (ibid.).
In fairness, however, the Committee of Eminent Chiefs, under the chairmanship of the King of Asante, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II was set up primarily to reach a consensus between the Abudus and Andanis for the burial of the Ya Na. The Committee made a significant breakthrough in this regard, leading to the burial of the king on 10 April 2006, four years after his murder. For detailed discussions of the various political influences at play in the Dagbon crisis since Ghana's independence in 1957, see Brukum, ‘Chieftaincy and Politics in Northern Ghana, 1951–2004’.
The NDC's campaign manifesto for the 2008 election clearly recognized the danger that the Dagbon crisis poses to the democratic stability of the nation, and accordingly pledged to set up a non-partisan commission of inquiry to re-open investigations into the case (NDC, ‘Manifesto for a Better Ghana 2008’, 34), an issue which was recently reiterated in President Mills’ State of the Nation Address on 19 February 2009.
Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, 6.
For example, the number of registered CSOs in Ghana increased from about 80 in the 1980s to 652 in 1996 and further to 1,211 by 2000 (Department of Social Welfare (DSW) cited in Aseidu, ‘Poverty Reduction among the Urban Poor in Accra’, 6–7).
Gyimah-Boadi, ‘Ghana's Fourth Republic’, 3.
Freedom House, ‘Freedom of the Press 2008’, 82.
Similarly, IDEG, in collaboration with the Civic Forum Initiative, trained and deployed about 1000 observers in 100 selected constituencies that were perceived to be violence-prone.
See Gyimah-Boadi, ‘Another Step Forward for Ghana’, 145, and Jockers et al., ‘The Successful Ghana Election of 2008’, 7–8. Accounting for the success of the 2008 elections, Zounmenou also recognized ‘the crucial roles played by civil society organisations and the media’ (Zounmenou, ‘Ghana's 2008 Election’, 6).
EU EOM, ‘Ghana Final Report’, 25.
Freedom House, ‘Freedom of the Press 2008’ and ‘Global Press Freedom 2008. Similarly, the BBC recently identified Ghana as: ‘one of the few countries on the [African] continent where the media seemingly operates without fear of systematic harassment by the authorities. The authorities observe a rare tolerance, media laws remain flexible, and the constitution is vocal in defending media freedoms’ (BBC cited in Keefer, ‘The Resilience of Clientelism’, 33).
Darkwa, Amponsah, and Gyampoh, ‘Civil Society in a Changing Ghana’, 25. The increasing media assertiveness in Ghana can also be attributed partly to the 1992 Constitution, which not only provides for the freedom and independence of the media (Article 162(5)), but also mandates it to uphold ‘the accountability of the Government to the people of Ghana’ (Article 162 (1)).
The work of these media houses was similar to that of the Electoral Commission in the EC ‘strong room’, albeit with the former being more transparent as the collation of the constituency results across the country was done in full view of the public eye.
See Ghana News Agency, ‘EC Cautions Media Against Skewed Electoral Reportage’.
‘Media Severely Criticised Over Bad Reportage’, http://ghanaelections2008.blogspot.com/2009/03/media-severely-criticised-over-bad.html, 2 March 2009 (accessed on 8 April 2009).
Sandbrook and Oelbaum, Reforming the Political Kingdom, 28.
See Government of Ghana, The 1992 Constitution, Article 55(1).
Ibid., Article 55(3).
Frempong, ‘Innovations in Electoral Politics in Ghana's Fourth Republic’, 190. The formation of IPAC was facilitated by the Electoral Commission of Ghana in collaboration with the Institute for Economic Affairs, a non-governmental organization. By establishing IPAC, the EC was responding to a recommendation made by the Commonwealth Observer Group (COG), following their observation of the 1992 elections, of the need to institutionalize a platform through which political parties could freely articulate their grievances (COG cited in Frempong, ‘Innovations in Electoral Politics in Ghana's Fourth Republic’, 191).
Jonah, ‘Inter-Party Dialogue in Ghana’, 8. Over the years, the IPAC has also succeeded in achieving compromised solutions to contested electoral matters such as single day for both presidential and parliamentary elections; the issue of photo ID and transparent ballot boxes cards to enhance transparency in voting; and the need to allow political party agents as election observers (Ayee cited in Frempong, ‘Innovations in Electoral Politics in Ghana's Fourth Republic’, 191).
While the Platform, comprising the General Secretaries of the four political parties that have representation in Parliament, meets on a bi-monthly basis to discuss issues relating to party programmes and activities (Frempong, ‘Innovations in Electoral Politics in Ghana's Fourth Republic’, 194), the Chairmen's caucus ‘concentrates on resolution of [inter-party] conflicts that threaten multi-party democracy in Ghana’ (Jonah, ‘Inter-Party Dialogue in Ghana’, 2).
Jonah, ‘Political Parties, Democracy and Development in Ghana’, 7.
WiLDAF-Ghana, ‘Gender Analysis of 2008 Elections’, 28.
Dake, ‘A Golden Age for Women's Participation in Ghana?’, 3.
CDD-Ghana, ‘Of Women and Ministerial Appointments’, 6.
NDC, ‘Manifesto for a Better Ghana 2008’, 14.
Ibid., 25.
Owusu, ‘Mr President, Where Are The Women?’
For example, although the President exercises executive power, including the enforcement of all the laws of Ghana (Article 58(2)), the President can neither make laws nor spend public funds without the authorization of Parliament. According to the Constitution, the President has the power to refuse assent to a bill passed by Parliament even though Parliament can override the President's veto by a vote of not less than two-thirds of its members (Article 106(9–10)). Similarly, while only Parliament is empowered to impose and waiver taxes (Article 174), as well as authorizing public expenditure (Article 78), it is only the President who has the constitutional power to introduce a bill or motion to impose a tax or spend public money (Article 108).
Mensah, ‘Observing African Excellence as Prelude to African Renaissance’, 8.
Ninsin, Executive-Parliament Interface in the Legislative Process; Lindberg with Zhou, ‘The Rise and Decline of Parliament of Ghana’.
Ala Adjetey, cited in Ghana Integrity Initiative, ‘The Effectiveness of Parliament of the Fourth Republic’, 6.
Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, 6.
Ibid., 7.
Ibid.
For details, see Chapter Five of the 1992 Constitution, entitled ‘Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms’.
See Articles 213(d) and 218 of the 1992 Constitution respectively.
In 2005, for example, CHRAJ began investigations on media allegations of corruption and conflict of interest against President Kufuor. The allegations concerned the acquisition of a hotel building by the President at a cost of $3 million, and registered it in the name of his son. The Commission did not, however, find any evidence to substantiate the allegations against the President (CHRAJ, ‘Report of a Preliminary Investigation’). Also, in 2005, CHRAJ completed preliminary investigations into allegations of corruption, abuse of office and conflict of interest against Dr Richard Anane, then Minister of Roads and Transport. CHRAJ found that there was indeed conflict of interest and abuse of power and recommended, among other things, that the President sack the said minister. Following this, the minister resigned (Bossman, ‘The Anti-Corruption Mandate of Ghana's Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice’, 5), although he later contested CHRAJ's decision in the Supreme Court and won.
For example, Article 12 (2) of the Constitution clearly states that ‘neither the President nor Parliament nor any person whatsoever shall interfere with judges … or other persons exercising judicial power’.
See Article 88(3) of the Constitution.
In 1995, for example, CHRAJ investigated two serving ministers of state and a presidential adviser, and found them guilty of corruption, illegal acquisition of wealth, conflict of interest, and abuse of office. However, the then National Democratic Congress government issued a White Paper on CHRAJ's report, which effectively cleared the affected officials of any wrongdoing.
Bossman, ‘Promoting and Protecting Human Rights, Ensuring Administrative Justice and Fighting Corruption in Ghana’.
See Article 144 of the 1992 Constitution.
Comprised of 25 members, the Council of State is an advisory body to the President, although he is not obliged to heed its advice. In accordance with Article 89 of the Constitution, it is composed of a mixture of ex-officio members and presidential appointees, in consultation with Parliament.
See Article 128(1) of the Constitution.
Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, 11–13.
Killick, ‘The Politics of Ghana's Budgetary System’, 12; Quartey, ‘The Ghana Civil Service’.
Cooper-Enchia, ‘Pay Reform in Ghana’; Quartey, ‘The Ghana Civil Service’.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, ‘Public Sector Reform’, 15–16.
IDEG, The Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy, 23; see also Whitfield, ‘Trustees of Development’.
Indeed, back in 1996, an external review of World Bank operations in Ghana warned of excessive aid dependency characterized by donor-driven agendas, priorities, and budgets in the reform process; accountability to development partners rather than domestic constituencies; and over-reliance by the government on donor initiatives and actions (Armstrong cited in Whitfield and Jones, ‘Ghana: Breaking out of Aid Dependence?’). These shortcomings, identified over a decade ago, have not been rectified, and donor-driven agendas in Ghana remain dominant.
Quartey, ‘The Ghana Civil Service’, 26.
A 2005 national survey found that 75% of all Ghanaian households regard corruption as a serious national problem, with 80% feeling that the phenomenon had worsened in the recent past (African Peer Review Mechanism, ‘Country Review Report’, 36). Besides, other research findings, such as the Afrobarometer (2005) Round 3 survey and the Ghana Integrity Initiative's (GII) ‘Voice of the People Survey’ in July 2005, indicate a perceived increase in the degree of corruption in Ghana. In the GII survey, out of the 900 interviewees, 61% had the opinion that corruption had become ‘worse’ and ‘much worse’ in recent times.
Transparency International ranks countries on a scale of 0–10, with assessments of less than 5 indicating high levels of corruption. See www.transparencyinternational.org.
According to the study, an average of only 51% of non-salary resources allocated by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports to primary schools actually arrived there. The position in health was worse, where there was a leakage of no less than 79% of non-salary allocations intended for clinics and health posts (Ye and Canagarajah cited in Killick, ‘The Politics of Ghana's Budgetary System’, 9).
Whitfield, ‘Change for Better Ghana’; Gadzekpo, ‘The Difficulties of Democratic Deepening’, 3; Quartey, ‘The Ghana Civil Service’.
Cooper-Enchia, ‘Pay Reform in Ghana’, 2.
Government of Ghana, ‘Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy’, 119.
As Paa Kwesi Ndoum, then Minister for Public Sector Reforms noted: ‘We just simply don't have in the civil service the people with whom to plan, with whom to initiate innovative policies. All the very few good people we work with, we work them so hard and pay them poorly’ (Otchere-Darko, ‘Are Public Sector Reforms Real?’).
The GPRS I and II are Ghana's two most recent medium-term development strategies, prepared by the erstwhile NPP government under the tutelage of World Bank and IMF's poverty reduction strategy papers.
Interestingly, the GPRS I refers to the downsizing of the civil and public services as ‘right-sizing’, and states that ‘Public sector reform involving right-sizing of the public service … is a sine qua non for provision of an enabling environment for private sector development and the effective provision of public services’ (Government of Ghana, ‘Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy’, 40–41).
Other recent privatizations have included the sale of 70% of the nation's telecommunication institution, Ghana Telecom, to Vodafone in July 2008 for US$900 million; Ghana Airways; and the State Insurance Company. In 2007, attempts to privatize the Agricultural Development Bank and the Ghana Commercial Bank did not materialise due to a massive public outcry and resistance by the Trade Union Congress.
NDPC, 2006 Annual Progress Report, 128.
Quartey, ‘The Ghana Civil Service’, 43.
For example, progress in improving access to health care has also been quite disappointing, with a recorded high infant mortality rate of 71 per 1000 births in 2006 (NDPC, 2007 Annual Progress Report, 121), and preventable diseases such as malaria still accounting for about 800,000 deaths among children under the age of five annually (GoG, ‘Ghana: Country Review Report’, 29). Maternal mortality also remains a problem: for every 10,000 live births in the country, over 214 Ghanaian women die in the process of delivery (see Ghana Health Service cited in The Chronicle, 3).
NDC, ‘Manifesto for a Better Ghana 2008’, 26.
Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, 12.
Ibid., 12–13.
Ibid.
Ibid., 13.
See, for example, Wood, Democracy against Capitalism, 233, and Pierson, ‘Democracy, Markets and Capital’, 179.
Whitfield, ‘Aid's Political Consequences’; Whitfield and Jones, ‘Ghana: Breaking Out of Aid Dependence?’
NDC, ‘National Democratic Congress Manifesto 2004’, 12.
For example, in his inaugural address on 7 January 2009, President Mills emphasised that the newly NDC government under his leadership ‘will strive to balance the efficiency of the market with the compassion of the state’. (See ‘Inaugural Speech by the President Professor John Evans Atta Mills’, 7 January 2009, http://www.ghc-ca.com/Animation/speech.pdf.).
World Bank, World Development Report 1997.
GoG, ‘Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy’, 35–6.
Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, 12.
CDD-Ghana, ‘Economic Conditions in Ghana in 2008’, 1.
Official government statistics suggest that poverty in Ghana has reduced significantly despite a purported decline in income poverty from a high of 51.7% of the population in 1991–92 to 39.5% in 1998–99, and further to 28.5% in 2005–06 (GoG, Ghana Living Standards Survey 2005/06).
SEND-Foundation, ‘Where Did Ghana's Funds Go?’, 12. There are ten regions in Ghana, with the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions comprising northern Ghana, while the remaining seven regions comprise the southern part of the country.
Jockers et al., ‘The Successful Ghana Election 2008’, 5.
Map Consult, Good Governance in Ghana, 18.
IDEG and CFI, ‘Ghana's December 7, 2008 Elections’, 12. This was mainly caused by malpractices that occurred during the limited registration exercise from 31 July to 13 August 2008. This exercise was only meant to register newly eligible voters (those who had turned 18 after the 2004 elections) and also capture those, who for one reason or the other, had not registered during the previous election. This exercise, however, seemed to have been exploited by the two main political parties, as their desperation to capture or remain in power lured them to encourage aliens and foreigners as well as under-aged citizens and minors to register. Similarly, it became evident that already registered voters also engaged in double and multiple registrations for a variety of reasons, including the desire to obtain new identification cards for general purposes. All these contributed to the inaccuracy of the voter register (ibid.).
Daily Graphic, ‘Register Could Be Bloated’.
Indeed, a major development in the post election environment has been widespread calls for the need to compile a new voter register (see Daily Graphic, ‘Parties Want New Register’) with some calling for the need to introduce a biometric system of registering voters before the 2012 elections (see The Statesman, ‘Nigeria A Step Close to E-Voting for 2011’).
For example, a 2006 Civil Society Index Study conducted by Darkwa, Amponsah and Gyampoh, ‘Civil Society in a Changing Ghana’, 11, concludes that ‘the overall policy impact of Ghanaian civil society is limited’. Earlier, Friedman and Robinson, ‘Civil Society, Democratization and Foreign Aid in Africa’, 39, had also observed that ‘[civil society] organizations in Ghana … have generally proved ineffective in their efforts to influence government policy and legislation’.
On 3 February 2005, President Kufuor in his State of the Nation Address stated that the passage of the Right to Information Bill would be his government's priority in order to give citizens the right to relevant public information, a promise which was not fulfilled before the electoral defeat of the NPP in the December 2008 polls. The newly elected NDC government pledged in its 2008 election manifesto to ‘enact into law the Freedom of Information Bill to facilitate access to official information’ (‘Manifesto for a Better Ghana 2008’, 24), a commitment which was recently reiterated by the Attorney General in a meeting with members of the Coalition on the Right to Information in Ghana (CRIG) (Ghana News Agency, ‘NDC Committed to Pass RTI’).
Indeed one critique of some leading advocacy NGOs in Ghana is that their reliance on, and closeness to, donor agencies means that they risk becoming mouthpieces for donor policies (Crawford, ‘The European Union and Strengthening Civil Society in Africa’, 153).
Just Associates, ‘Strategic Opportunity or Black Hole?’, 2. Such ‘invited spaces’ included an annual National Economic Dialogue, introduced by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to allow participation by selected non-state actors in the formulation of the annual economic policy and budget statement of the government, but then rapidly phased out (Crawford and Abdulai, ‘The World Bank, Good Governance and Ghana's Poverty Reduction Strategy’). Other such spaces are the ‘Meet the Press’ series with government ministers, the occasional Speaker's Breakfast Forum, and since 2006, the opening of the annual Donor-Government of Ghana Consultative Group meetings to selected civil society organizations.
Just Associates, ‘Strategic Opportunity or Black Hole?’, 2.
CDD-Ghana News, ‘Statement on the Appointment of Members of Parliament’.
This proposal was also made by Anna Bossman (Acting Commissioner, CHRAJ) in ‘Promoting and Protecting Human Rights’.
See for example Ennin, ‘Is the Kufour Administration Driving the NPP into Oblivion?’
Gyimah-Boadi, ‘Another Step Forward for Ghana’, 6; Whitfield, ‘Change For A Better Ghana’.
Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, 13.
Ibid., 12–13.
For example, findings from the 2008 Afrobarometer Round 4 survey suggests that poverty is more pronounced in rural areas than in urban areas, especially when it comes to medical care and cash income, with 38% of rural dwellers compared with 25% of urban dwellers reporting having gone without medical care in the last 12 months. Similarly, whereas 56% of urban dwellers report a lack of cash income at least once in the last 12 months, some 69% of rural respondents report similarly (CDD-Ghana, ‘Economic Conditions in Ghana in 2008’, 4). Similarly, less than a third of respondents in Northern (31%), Upper East (30%) and Volta (29%) regions think they are better off than other Ghanaians. This underscores a growing sense of inequality in some regions of Ghana, despite overall improvements in economic conditions (ibid., 3).
We wish to thank an anonymous reviewer who pressed us to go this step further and provide some critical reflections on the application of Linz and Stepan's theoretical framework.