Why Ghana’s Election Matters Across Africa

The West African democracy is one of the continent’s most enduring, but it shouldn’t be taken for granted. It’s a bulwark for democracy beyond its borders.

By John J. Chin

December 2024

On 7 December 2024, Ghanaians went to the polls for the country’s ninth general election since the return of multiparty politics in 1992. At a time when term limits are under attack across Africa, it is a testament to the resilience of Ghana’s democracy that President Nana Akufo-Addo is poised to step down at the end of his second and final term in office and that the country will experience its fifth peaceful transition of presidential power in three decades.

Ghana’s election this past weekend featured a showdown between the country’s two leading parties, Akufo-Addo’s New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC). Though official results are still pending, Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia, the NPP presidential candidate, has already conceded defeat to the opposition NDC candidate, former president John Mahama (2012–17).

Since 2020, the NPP and NDC have held an equal number of parliamentary seats (137), but unofficial early returns indicate that the NDC also won a majority in parliament this year.

Why does this election matter? What explains the outcome, and what is at stake?

Democratic Bulwark amid a Coup Pandemic?

In the latter half of the twentieth century, Ghana’s political history was mired by chronic political instability, military coups, and repressive authoritarian rule. According to the Colpus dataset, all but two of Ghana’s leaders between independence (1957) and the end of the Cold War (1991) were ousted in military coups, making Ghana the third most coup-prone state in sub-Saharan Africa through the 1980s.

The first three democratic regimes in Ghana’s history were all short-lived (1957–60, 1969–72, and 1979–81); democratic breakdown came as a result of executive-led backsliding under Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah (1960–66), and coups ousting K.A. Busia in 1972 and Hilla Limann in 1981. The latter “coup from the bottom” (that is, from lower ranks of the military) led to the personalist dictatorship of Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings, who ruled from 1982 to January 2001.

The reintroduction of multiparty politics in 1992 was aided by the global tailwind of the “third wave” of democracy and pressure from Western foreign-aid donors. It was also aided by Rawlings’s conviction — buoyed by strong economic performance — that his newly formed NDC would do well under democracy. Indeed, Rawlings and the NDC won the 1992 and 1996 elections. Despite fears that he might seek a third term, Rawlings stepped down peacefully at the end of his constitutionally limited second term, leading to the NPP taking power in 2001.

In the twenty-first century, Ghana quickly became one of Africa’s most democratic countries. Indeed, Ghana has a competitive and stable two-party system, with no ruling party holding power for more than two consecutive terms. The NPP swept elections in 2000 and 2004. In 2008, the party retained the presidency, but the NDC won a plurality of legislative seats. In 2012, the NDC reclaimed the presidency, though John Mahama lost his bid for reelection in 2016 to the NPP’s Akufo-Addo. The 2024 elections mark the return of Mahama and the NDC after four years of NPP rule.

Yet Ghana’s democratic progress has stagnated. According to the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project, Ghana is one of four countries in sub-Saharan Africa that lost the status of liberal democracy in the last decade. Though still an electoral democracy, the V-Dem data attest to the country’s ongoing democratic erosion.

The autonomy of Ghana’s election-management body in particular has declined. The NPP accused the Electoral Commission of manipulating the vote in 2012, though Mahama’s victory that year was upheld by Ghana’s Supreme Court. In 2023, Akufo-Addo made controversial appointments of two NPP partisans to the Electoral Commission. As a result, public trust in the body slipped to 33 percent, the lowest figure ever recorded since Afrobarometer polling began in 1999. Still, more than 80 percent of Ghanaians continue to express support for elections today.

Why Did the NDC Win in 2024?

The latest NPP defeat is part of a broader global wave of rejection of incumbents at the ballot box in 2024. Nic Cheeseman has called 2024 the “annus horribilis” for incumbents in Africa, with a record five electoral transfers of power. From Botswana to Somaliland, governing parties have lost seats due to a combination of economic downturns, growing public rejection of corruption, and increasingly assertive and coordinated opposition.

Ghana is no exception to this wave of regional unrest. Early voting data suggest the turnout rate in this weekend’s elections fell to about 61 percent, which may signal growing voter apathy to politics.

The 2024 elections come at a time when Ghana is buffeted by the worst economic crisis in a generation. By all indications, the economy was the top issue for many voters. In the wake of the covid-19 pandemic and supply disruptions owing to the Russia-Ukraine war, the inflation rate soared, reaching as high as 54 percent in late 2022. In December 2022, Ghana failed to meet its debt obligations. An emergency US$3 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund approved in 2023 stabilized the economy somewhat, yet in November 2024 inflation rose for a third month in a row, hitting 23 percent even while Ghana’s central bank kept its main interest rate at 27 percent. Over the last eight years, Ghana’s currency has lost 70 percent of its value.

Little wonder that in Afrobarometer’s latest (round 10) poll in August 2024, large majorities rated the government’s economic performance negatively. The six most important problems in the country were identified as unemployment (41 percent), infrastructure/roads (38 percent), health (33 percent), education (28 percent), management of the economy (25 percent), and increasing cost of living (21 percent). Some 78 percent of respondents rated the country’s economic condition as fairly or very bad, and 82 percent of respondents reported that the country is “going in the wrong direction.” With unemployment rates of 14 percent and few jobs, many youth want to leave Ghana.

The share of swing voters — those willing to cross NPP-NDC party lines — has grown in the last two decades, from just 13 percent in 2000 to nearly 30 percent in 2021. Perceptions of party performance are the strongest predictor of swing voting in Ghana, and so naturally both parties marketed their economic policies to swing voters this year. Although Vice-President Bawumia had promised to develop Ghana’s “digital economy,” he and the NPP represented continuity. Mahama and the NDC promised an “urgent reset,” in part by transforming Ghana into a “24-hour economy,” and asked voters to overlook the electricity crisis during the former president’s first term.

It remains unclear how large a role sectional cleavage or ethnic politics played in the election. Ghana has relatively inclusive ethnic power relations. Though Rawlings’s co-ethnic Ewe were privileged during 1982–2000, he included other ethnic groups as junior partners in his junta and elected government from 1992 to 2000. The NPP base of support has always been most strongly rooted in the Ashanti Region, where President Akufo-Addo (an Ashanti) won 72 percent of the vote in 2020. Both Mahama, a Christian, and Bawumia, a Muslim, hail from the north. Northern provinces are a strong base of support for the NDC along with the Volta region (Rawlings’s home region and a Ewe stronghold).

What’s at Stake

While the election campaign was won and lost mainly on economic issues, the contest has important implications for democracy and human rights in the region. The Russian-backed coup pandemic spreading across the Sahel must be contained. Ghana is central to that effort, and therefore ensuring the stability of Ghana’s democracy is paramount to the future of democracy in West Africa more broadly.

Mahama’s electoral victory may not reassure human-rights activists and advocates of civil liberties. In January, Mahama expressed his opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, saying he believed that gay marriage and being transgender were antithetical to his Christian beliefs. In July, Ghana’s supreme court upheld a colonial-era law criminalizing gay sex. In February, Ghana’s parliament — with support from both the NPP and NDC — passed a bill imposing a three-year jail sentence for anyone convicted of identifying as LGTBQ (and even jail time for friends and family who fail to report loved ones). One of Mahama’s first tasks as president may be deciding whether to sign or veto this legislation, which has been criticized by rights groups.

Another pressing task awaiting Mahama upon taking office will be tackling increasing insecurity in Ghana’s far north. Ghana currently faces a growing threat of jihadist violence spilling over its 372-mile-long northern border with Burkina Faso. In 2022, Ghana’s northern neighbor, Burkina Faso, suffered two coups, and military rule to the north has not brought stability to Ghana’s borderlands. Since 2022, more than 15,000 people fleeing Burkina Faso have poured into northern Ghana. In late October, it was reported that Islamist insurgents fighting in Burkina Faso had set up rear bases in northern Ghana. An August attack on a Togolese army base close to the Ghana border has underscored the need for greater border fortifications.

To ensure continuing support for Ghana’s democracy, the number-one priority needs to be improving socioeconomic conditions, especially for the large youth population. More than 10 million of Ghana’s 18 million voters are young people between the ages of 15 and 35; this group comprises 38 percent of the population, and those under 15 years old, another 35 percent. Youth voters are particularly concerned about unemployment.

Given the possibility of jihadist insurgency spilling over from the Sahel, and the importance of Ghana as a democratic bulwark in the region, the EU and United States should seek to strengthen economic ties and security partnerships with Ghana. In October 2023, the EU provided the country with 105 military vehicles. This past May, AFRICOM commander General Michael Langley visited Ghana to discuss ways to deepen security cooperation between the two countries. Last March, during a tour of West Africa by U.S. vice-president Kamala Harris, the United States pledged $100 million in security aid for five countries bordering the Sahel, including Ghana, in addition to a planned $139 million in bilateral U.S. aid for Ghana.

This is a good start, but more support to secure Ghana’s democracy is needed. U.S. bilateral aid to Ghana peaked in 2015 at over $215 million and is at much lower levels now, even though the economic and strategic needs are much greater today. Last year, Kenya became America’s first major non-NATO ally in sub-Saharan Africa. Similarly but conditionally deepening the strategic partnership with Ghana could bolster regional security, offset the growing influence of China and Russia in the region, and help Ghana to reverse recent democratic backsliding at home and in the region. Despite its setbacks, Ghana’s democracy is one of Africa’s most enduring and more than merits the investment.

John J. Chin is an assistant teaching professor of political science in the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology at Carnegie Mellon University.

Copyright © 2024 National Endowment for Democracy

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