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The 2008 Presidential elections in Ghana (African Renaissance Vol 6 No.1 2009)

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ISSN : 1744-2532 (Print) 2516-5305 (Online)

ISBN : 9781906704544

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In volume 5, No.3 & 4 2008 edition of the journal, we dealt with the issue of Electoral Violence and Post-Electoral Arrangements in Africa, noting that the end of the Cold War and big power rivalries in the late 1980s coincided with and/or contributed to the restoration or establishment of multiparty systems in most of Africa in what has been termed the ‘third wave of democratisation’. We also noted that the violence that followed what was apparently a peaceful presidential poll in Kenya in December 2007 and the circumstances that surrounded the 2008 presidential election in Zimbabwe seem to overshadow the view of many observers about the democratic process in Africa.

In this issue, the first in 2009, we look closely at the recently concluded Ghanaian presidential elections. Ernest Ansah Lartey and Kwesi Anning give an insight into the emerging presidential transitional culture in Ghana’s political development. They note that the 2008 election was robustly contested between the two leading political parties – the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and that the institutional character of the electoral process in Ghana was tested to its limit. Just like the 2000 elections when the opposition NPP won the elections from the ruling NDC, the 2008 elections also produced an electoral outcome that led to the opposition NDC taking over power from the NPP. Lartey and Anning contend that this trend “suggests that it takes more than a campaign message of political continuity for a succeeding presidential candidate to retain political power for the incumbent political party.”

Jasper Ayelazuno challenges notions that the 2008 elections in Ghana reinforced the country’s democratic credentials. He argues that based on the “observation of the elections – as part of the investigations for my doctoral thesis – and my participation in previous elections as a voter and security officer (the 1992 and 1996 elections when I was with the Ghana Police Service), I shall be challenging these sanguine views.” He also contends that the rave reviews of the elections, are too “extravagant and mask and underestimate events which nearly turned Ghana to another ‘Kenya’ or ‘Zimbabwe’ in Africa.”

Sheyi Oriade compared Nigeria and Ghana, noting the rivalries and the love-hate relations between the two countries. He argues that “one of the areas, which today elevates Ghana and shames Nigeria, in the estimation of their respective citizens and observers alike, is in the conduct and outcome of elections. At different times during the course of this decade Ghana has held elections that have been adjudged by participants and observers alike to be largely free and fair”.

Besides the articles in the lead theme, we also brought other articles – from Philip Emeagwali’s ‘The Last Computer’ to Seifudein Adem’s re-reading of Ali Mazrui’s article “Nkrumah: The Leninist Czar”

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