Ghana serves as democratic role model

(Credit: BBC graphics)

Professor John Atta Mills today took the oath of allegiance and stressed the need for national reconciliation in front of thousands of people in Accra’s Independence Square during his inauguration as Ghana’s new president. The National Democratic Congress (NDC) leader beat the ruling New Patriotic Party’s Nana Akufo-Addo by a margin of less than 0.5% of votes cast.

The outgoing president is only the second elected head of state in the country’s history to hand over to the opposition. Despite allegations of electoral malpractice and intimidation from both sides, monitors praised Ghana’s poll as an example to others.

Ghana’s second peaceful transition in a decade “will certainly help buttress democratic transition in this country and reinforce its young institutions,” said Chris Fomunyoh of the National Democratic Institute. The elections were the country’s fifth since multi-party democracy was restored in 1992. “Hopefully, Ghana will continue to serve as a democratic role model for other African countries along with Benin, Botswana, Mali, Mauritius and South Africa,” Fomunyoh said.

The election was fiercely contested, not least because of the recent discovery of crude oil, with production scheduled for late 2010 and anticipated revenues of between $2 billion to $3 billion a year. But the “mutual loathing and distrust” between the political rivals noted by Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development did not erupt into violence.

So why did Ghana succeed where others failed? In part because democracy is relatively consolidated and because of Kufuor’s willingness to respect his constitutional obligation to leave office after two terms (unlike Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, Chad’s Idriss Deby, Cameroon’s Paul Biya and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe) and because unlike their Kenyan counterparts, Ghana’s political leaders refrained from exploiting ethnic divisions.

Independent media have also enhanced transparency and accountability, raising Ghanaians’ expectations of their leaders. “What has made the difference is that successive leaders have allowed an independent media to flourish and an autonomous electoral commission to gain strength as an institution, and with it public trust,” notes one analysis. “In the process, Ghanaians are becoming increasingly demanding of performance from their politicians.”

The Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) monitored the poll and conducted a parallel vote tabulation which allowed it to conclude that the election run-off was “largely in accordance with the electoral laws “even if “there was relatively more intimidation and violence” than in the previous election. The coalition played a significant role in monitoring the poll, conducting a parallel vote tabulation and deploying some 4000 non-partisan election observers, including over 1000 Rapid Response Observers allocated to a representative sample of polling stations in all 230 constituencies.  

The group has also harnessed the power of cell phones to prevent politicians from stealing elections. CODEO comprises thirty-four professional, religious and civic advocacy bodies, including the Christian Council of Ghana, the Federation of Muslim Councils, the Ghana National Association of Teachers, the Trade Union Congress, and the Ghana Federation of the Disabled.