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One Election, Two Victories: Ghana’s 2016 General Elections Revisited

Received: 12 August 2019     Accepted: 5 September 2019     Published: 19 September 2019
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Abstract

This article examines election-related violence that characterizes some electoral processes across Africa. The study thematically focussed on two dominant political parties in Ghana, thus the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in respect of the December 2016 Presidential election. These two political parties have alternated executive power in Ghana since the birth of the Fourth Republic in January 1993, with Ghana having failed to maintain the status quo immediately after independence from British colonial rule. The claims and counterclaims of victory immediately after polls closed in the December, 2016 Presidential and Parliamentary elections, brought Ghana to the brink of election violence. Both parties’ counter-claimed victory, purportedly based on ‘results’ obtained from their polling agents posted across the various polling stations in all the 275 constituencies. The Electoral Commission (EC), which supervised the general election was surprisingly mute in declaring the winner of the 2016 Presidential election in the midst of these controversies. This paper argues that the vacuum created by the EC per its delay in the declaration of certified Presidential election results after polls had closed, was a blot on Ghana’s status as the beacon of democracy and peace in Africa.

Published in Social Sciences (Volume 8, Issue 5)
DOI 10.11648/j.ss.20190805.14
Page(s) 234-244
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2019. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Ballot Rigging, Electoral Processes, Electoral Fraud, Political Violence, Vote Buying

References
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[3] Fund, J. (2004). Stealing elections: How voter fraud threatens our democracy. San Francisco: Encounter Books.
[4] Lehoucq, F. (2003). Electoral fraud: Causes, types, and consequences, Annual Review of Political Science 6, pp 242-46.
[5] Ayee, J. R. A. (2002). The 2000 general elections and presidential run-off in Ghana: An overview, Democratization, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 148-174.
[6] Brierley, S. & Ofosu, G. (2014). The presidential and parliamentary elections in Ghana, Decembe 2012, Electoral Studies 35 pp. 382-85. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstd.2014.02.005
[7] Daddier, C. K. (2009). The presidential and parliamentary elections in Ghana, December 2008, Electoral Studies, Vol. 28, No. 4, pp 642-47.
[8] Jockers, H., Dirk, K. & Nugent, P. (2010). The successful Ghana election of 2008: A convenient myth? The Journal of Modern African Studies, 48 (01), pp. 95–115. DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X09990231.
[9] Osei, A. (2013). Party system institutionalization in Ghana and Senegal, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Vol. 48, No. 5, pp. 577-593.
[10] Heywood, A. (2007). Politics, 3rd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
[11] Spiegel, H. W. (1991). The growth of economic thought (3rd ed.). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
[12] Bullock, A., & Trombley, S. eds. (1999). The Norton dictionary of modern thought. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
[13] Hechter, M., & Kanazawa S. (1997). ‘Sociological rational theory’. Annual Review of Sociology23: 191-214).
[14] Downs, A. (1957). An economic theory of democracy. New York: Harper & Row.
[15] Mclean, I., & McMillan, A. eds. (2009). Concise dictionary of politics. Oxford University Press.
[16] Cheema, G. S. (2005). Building Democratic Institutions: Governance Reform in Developing Countries. USA: Kumarian Press, Inc.
[17] Kingsbury, D. (2007). Political development. New York, Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group.
[18] Hobbes, T. (1961). “Leviathan.” In Great Political Thinkers, ed. W. Ebenstein, New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston.
[19] www.unhcr.org/basics.html, February 9, 2009.
[20] World Data Atlas (2016). See http://www. Knoema.com/atlas/topics/Tourism/Travel-and-Tourism-Total-Contribution-GDP-Real-growth-percent. Accessed: June 12, 2017.
[21] Boafo-Arthur, K. (2004). ‘The 2004 general elections: An overview’ in Kwame Boafo-Arthur (editor), Voting for democracy in Ghana: The 2004 elections in perspective. Thematic Studies Vol. 1. Accra: Freedom Publications, Legon.
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  • APA Style

    Awaisu Imurana Braimah, Alhassan Salifu Bawah. (2019). One Election, Two Victories: Ghana’s 2016 General Elections Revisited. Social Sciences, 8(5), 234-244. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20190805.14

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    ACS Style

    Awaisu Imurana Braimah; Alhassan Salifu Bawah. One Election, Two Victories: Ghana’s 2016 General Elections Revisited. Soc. Sci. 2019, 8(5), 234-244. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20190805.14

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    AMA Style

    Awaisu Imurana Braimah, Alhassan Salifu Bawah. One Election, Two Victories: Ghana’s 2016 General Elections Revisited. Soc Sci. 2019;8(5):234-244. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20190805.14

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ss.20190805.14,
      author = {Awaisu Imurana Braimah and Alhassan Salifu Bawah},
      title = {One Election, Two Victories: Ghana’s 2016 General Elections Revisited},
      journal = {Social Sciences},
      volume = {8},
      number = {5},
      pages = {234-244},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ss.20190805.14},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20190805.14},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ss.20190805.14},
      abstract = {This article examines election-related violence that characterizes some electoral processes across Africa. The study thematically focussed on two dominant political parties in Ghana, thus the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in respect of the December 2016 Presidential election. These two political parties have alternated executive power in Ghana since the birth of the Fourth Republic in January 1993, with Ghana having failed to maintain the status quo immediately after independence from British colonial rule. The claims and counterclaims of victory immediately after polls closed in the December, 2016 Presidential and Parliamentary elections, brought Ghana to the brink of election violence. Both parties’ counter-claimed victory, purportedly based on ‘results’ obtained from their polling agents posted across the various polling stations in all the 275 constituencies. The Electoral Commission (EC), which supervised the general election was surprisingly mute in declaring the winner of the 2016 Presidential election in the midst of these controversies. This paper argues that the vacuum created by the EC per its delay in the declaration of certified Presidential election results after polls had closed, was a blot on Ghana’s status as the beacon of democracy and peace in Africa.},
     year = {2019}
    }
    

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    AB  - This article examines election-related violence that characterizes some electoral processes across Africa. The study thematically focussed on two dominant political parties in Ghana, thus the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in respect of the December 2016 Presidential election. These two political parties have alternated executive power in Ghana since the birth of the Fourth Republic in January 1993, with Ghana having failed to maintain the status quo immediately after independence from British colonial rule. The claims and counterclaims of victory immediately after polls closed in the December, 2016 Presidential and Parliamentary elections, brought Ghana to the brink of election violence. Both parties’ counter-claimed victory, purportedly based on ‘results’ obtained from their polling agents posted across the various polling stations in all the 275 constituencies. The Electoral Commission (EC), which supervised the general election was surprisingly mute in declaring the winner of the 2016 Presidential election in the midst of these controversies. This paper argues that the vacuum created by the EC per its delay in the declaration of certified Presidential election results after polls had closed, was a blot on Ghana’s status as the beacon of democracy and peace in Africa.
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Author Information
  • Department of Political Science, University of Education, Winneba (UEW), Winneba, Ghana

  • Department of Marketing, Procurement & Supply Chain Management, University of Education, Winneba (UEW), Winneba, Ghana

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