1.4 Ghana

1.4.1 Governance Environment

Ghana is a constitutional democracy and one of the few countries in Africa that has had significant experiences with democratic political life. It operated as a democracy during the pre-independence internal self-rule period, 1951-1957, during the early post-independence period, 1957-1960, before yielding to one-party dictatorship. The country also experienced two brief renewals of civilian, constitutional government between October 1969-January 1972 and September 1979-December 1981. Ghana has also experienced a protracted period of military dictatorship. These included the National Liberation Council (NLC) in February 1966-October 1969, the National Redemption Council/Supreme Military Council (NRC/SMC) in January 1972-June 1979, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) in June 1979-September 1979 and the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), December 1981-January 1993. Despite the prolonged periods of military rule, there are important social and political forces embedded in the fabric of Ghanaian society that believe deeply in democratic government.

In November 1992, the PNDC government led by Flight Lieutenant. Jerry John Rawlings held multi-party presidential elections to return the country to constitutional rule. The elections were won by Flt. Lt. Rawlings’ National Democratic Congress (NDC). Although international observers, like the Commonwealth Observer Group (COG), declared the elections as “free and fair”, the outcome of the democratic transition was highly disputed by four opposition parties, namely, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the People’s National Convention (PNC), the National Independence Party (NIP) and the People’s Heritage Party (PHP). Consequently, they boycotted the parliamentary elections in December 1992. Therefore, during Ghana’s first four years of its fourth attempt to establish constitutional government, the governing party, the NDC virtually controlled all (189 out of the 200) seats in Parliament.

Elections have been held every four year resulting in three alternations of power in 2000, 2008 and 2016. Ghana has thus been ranked “free” by Freedom House and is widely regarded as one of Africa’s rare success stories. The country has enjoyed vast improvements in the quality of each successive election. Despite persistent challenges, the independence and administrative capacity of the Electoral Commission improved with each election, while public interest in national elections remained high (evidenced by voter turnouts consistently above 70%). In addition, the country’s key democratic institutions-the judiciary and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) continued to develop and solidify. Media freedoms and human rights expanded from one election to another.

The 1992 Ghanaian Constitution, which embodies the governance principles of the state, is based on a quasi-executive presidential system of government. Unlike the American presidential system which operates a separation of powers, the Constitution stipulates that a majority of the ministers of state in Ghana are appointed from among members of Parliament. The rationale is based on the experience of the conduct of parliamentary business under the abrogated 1979 Constitution, which, although it excluded ministers from membership of Parliament, impeded the implementation of legislative programmes under the Constitution. In spite of the aberration of the doctrine of separation of powers, what is crucial for purposes of rule of law and good governance is the unqualified independence of the Judiciary from both the Executive and Legislature which the Constitution in theory guarantees.