Innovations in Electoral Politics in Ghana’s Fourth Republic: An Analysis

Abstract

The people of Ghana are gearing themselves up for general elections in December 2 008. Election 2 008 would be a historic fifth consecutive national poll since the start of the current constitutional democratic dispensation in 1 992. The transitional presidential election of November 1 992 was highly disputed by the opposition parties leading to their boycott of the subsequent parliamentary poll that December. The acrimony no doubt had arisen from the fact that the outgoing military regime that had metamorphosed into a political party to contest that election was perceived to have rigged elections. It was from such shaky foundation that Ghana’s current dispensation has blossomed. The subsequent elections (1996, 2 004, and 2 004) have been more peaceful and generally free and fair. In 2 000, there was a peaceful alternation of power from the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) to the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). Ghana’s electoral successes have made it a paragon of good governance and peaceful coexistence in the West African sub-region which over the last decade and half has been better known for a spiral of violent conflict (Frempong 2006: 157).