Ghana's 2024 Elections: Ghanaians Vote for Renewal and Accountability

Introduction

As sociologist and observer of African politics Ebenezer Obadare has recently said “[l]iberal democracy is strengthening across Africa. One just needs to know where to look” (Obadare, 2024). This observation counters two narratives: first, that Africa is experiencing democratic decline, as exemplified by recent military coups in West Africa, and second, that Western democracy is incompatible with African political culture, which instead needs to develop its own form of “Afro-democracy.” In this analytical report, we heed Obadare's call for a non-essentialising view of democracy in Africa by reflecting collaboratively and through a multi-disciplinary lens on the parliamentary and presidential election in Ghana held on 7 December 2024.

Ghanaians cast a clear vote, enough for the Electoral Commission to – without a runoff – declare John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress winner of the election. Alongside Mahama, Prof. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang was elected the first ever female vice president of the Republic of Ghana. Yet, across Ghana's 276 constituencies, voter turnout remained comparatively low at 63.97 percent – a significant decrease from the 79 per cent during Ghana's 2020 elections held during the pandemic (Saibu and Agbele, 2021). This drop in turnout is a clear indicator of the population's frustration with the status quo represented in the two major parties’ flagbearers – a former president (John Dramani Mahama, National Democratic Congress [NDC]) and sitting vice president (Mahamudu Bawumia, New Patriotic Party [NPP]). At the same time, Ghana's electoral commission attracted intense criticism both in the period leading up to the elections, including allegations of discrepancies in the voter roll by the then-opposition NDC, and after. Delays in calling results in several constituencies, in particular, raised concerns around the spread of misinformation and post-election violence (cf. Saibu, 2023).

Despite these critiques, we argue here that Ghanaian democracy cannot be understood through the lens of institutional shortcomings. A full understanding requires a closer look at the modalities of political articulation and how specific issues became central voter concerns on the campaign trail, in the columns of internet blogs, in widely shared WhatsApp channels, and eventually at the ballot box.

Democratic Sustainability

Since the country's return to democratic rule in 1992, Ghana has recurrently been heralded as the model for democracy in Africa – largely because of its repeated, peaceful transfers of power (Abdulai and Crawford, 2010). Nonetheless, observers have pointed to the strong ethnic association of Ghana's essentially two-party system (Jockers et al., 2010; Owusu-Mensah and Ateku, 2024) and recurring incidents of political violence (Abdulai and Crawford, 2010; Bjarnesen, 2020). Equally, the continued underrepresentation or outright marginalisation of women in politics (Bauer and Darkwah, 2020; Bob-Milliar and Højlund Madsen, 2025) and the grinding erosion of the Ghanaian civil society and the media as the fourth estate (Tettey and Anoff-Ntow, 2024) have cast a critical light on Ghana's democratic performance. The limited success of biometric election technologies in ensuring trust and integrity in the electoral process, particularly in view of the routine mobilisation of allegations around foreigners participating in Ghana's elections, in turn, has undermined the uncontroversial idea of Ghana as model democracy (Debrah and Owusu-Mensah, 2023; Domfe et al., 2024; Effah and Debrah, 2018).

Moving beyond institutionalist accounts of the strength or fragility of Ghanaian democracy, observers have noted the importance of the social embeddedness of the “campaign trail” and political communication around it (Bob-Milliar and Paller, 2023; Obeng and Debrah, 2019), pointing to the resilience of Ghana's democratic culture, as it manifests, amongst other actions, in citizen vigilance at Ghana's polling stations (Bob-Milliar and Paller, 2018). We align with these voices in proposing that a qualitative exploration of key topics dominating the pre-election debates – that is, digital techno-optimism, informal mining, and the often-ignored religious factor – can bring us closer to understanding the current state of Ghanaian democracy. We then turn to an assessment of the institutional side of Ghanaian democratic resilience, including the politicisation of independent institutions.

The Broken Promise of the Digital Revolution

From the beginning of the campaigns, the economy featured centre-stage in Ghana's 2024 Presidential and Parliamentary elections. In particular, the NPP proposed leveraging digital innovations to stabilise and grow the economy. Throughout the campaign, NPP flagbearer Bawumia was portrayed on campaign posters around the country with a Wi-Fi symbol dotting the I in his name – a signal of the continuation of his vice-presidential agenda of leading Ghana into a knowledge-based economy built on the three pillars of biometric identification, digital addressing and digital finance. Yet, while this agenda gained Bawumia the nickname “Mr. Digital,” it did not necessarily attract the support of the electorate, which failed to identify with the NPP candidate's broad – and rather vague – campaign motto “it is possible.”

To understand the Ghanaian population's hesitancy to embrace the digital revolution, it is important to see Ghana's digitalisation agenda in a broader light. Researchers have pointed to the growing registration fatigue of Ghanaians who over the past decade have been repeatedly asked by government institutions to provide their biometric and other personal data – which often required significant waiting times and other resources – for a host of official registers. Despite these efforts, to date, no population register – including the biometric voter roll – has been able to eliminate contestations over who is and is not considered a Ghanaian citizen (see Nsiah, 2025). This residual doubt is especially concerning in contestations of the Ghanaian voter register, which in the 2024 elections (again) generated serious controversy over missing and transferred names (Mensah, 2024).

Moreover, whereas biometric registration initially was tied into techno-optimist promises of digital leapfrogging, more recent (re-)registration drives, such as the mandatory SIM card re-registration have taken on a clear rhetoric of force, such as in threats of disconnection. Meanwhile, digitalisation, from the point of view of the general public, has increasingly become associated with the experience of new pressures on the cost of living (such as, the e-levy on mobile financial transactions). In view of this, the decision to anchor the NPP campaign in Bawumia's image as “Mr. Digital” was perceived as tone-deaf among Ghanaians experiencing one of the hardest economic periods in recent times. Framed by the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and skyrocketing cost of living following the Russian invasion of Ukraine that has pushed Ghana into economic crisis, Bawumia's shift from “economic mastermind” in the early days of his vice-presidency to “Mr. Digital” was interpreted more as an unwillingness to address the economic concerns of the population than a promise of change. When NDC-hopeful Mahama commented that his political rival's agenda “would digitalise the kenkey” while Ghanaians struggle to afford necessities, the NPP responded by critiquing the semantics, calling the comments derogatory. For the youth of Accra, the NPP's perceived preoccupation with semantics over the real issue at hand became exemplary of the political elite failing to understand Ghanaians’ bread and butter concerns. Similar existential worries are mirrored in the debate around galamsey, environmental destruction and the future of liveability in Ghana, which we lay out in the following paragraphs.

Galamsey and the Future of Liveability

Reports abound about the environmental disaster Ghana faces emanating from informal small-scale artisanal gold mining, popularly known as galamsey. The unprecedented ecological crisis associated with this practice has made galamsey politically topical in the last two electoral cycles of 2020 and 2024. Galamsey dates back decades and initially involved exploitation of mineral deposits using rudimentary tools, such as shovels and axes (Kessey and Arko, 2013; ; Owusu-Boateng and Kumi-Aboagye 2013). Since the early 2010s, the practice has changed with use of heavy machinery, such as excavators, bulldozers, and earthmoving machines. On the one hand, this shift has resulted in severe environmental devastation, such as mining in protected forest reserves, and the pollution of iconic waterbodies like the Pra, Densu, and Ankobra rivers. On the other hand, the use of heavy machinery also means that galamsey now requires high capital investment. These conditions have attracted influential figures and political actors to the industry who fund galamsey operations by purchasing or renting both the machinery and the chemicals (such as mercury and cyanide) needed for processing gold. Some observers argue that the involvement of political actors in galamsey has not only exacerbated environmental devastation, but also limits the public debate around galamsey. This lack of public debate is especially relevant as galamsey provides livelihood – directly or indirectly – for at least one million people (Bansah 2019).

Galamsey has over the years been a recurring topic of public concern, especially during elections. In the 2020 elections, galamsey already represented an emerging topic; however, the debate subsided thereafter and operations continued unabated. In the lead-up to the 2024 elections, the tone changed again. Images of the polluted waterbodies served as a trigger for intense and fierce political debate about galamsey. Among these voices, a slew of Ghanaians including civil society organisations (among them, Democracy Hub, Catholic Priests and University Teachers Association of Ghana) and professional associations (such as Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences or the Ghana Medical Association) called for swift, decisive action from the state. In these calls, galamsey was framed as existential threat with severe public health implications, as evidenced in increasing incidents of kidney failure and cancer.

However, judging from the response of the erstwhile administration of the NPP, which did not offer solutions to the challenges of galamsey, nor place it on its election platform, it was clear that the galamsey debate was unappreciated. Journalists and other opinion leaders who opposed galamsey were threatened or silenced by the ruling government and their party footsoldiers, which further strengthened the public's perception that the involvement of influential figures and political actors in galamsey had resulted in a seeming lack of political will to deal with the problem. In this light, National Women's Organiser of the NPP and small-scale gold miner herself, Kate Gyamfua, noted that while Ghanaians were entitled to a political debate about galamsey, the timing of these calls was wrong. Firstly, Gyamfua argued that the debate happened too close to elections for a proper political engagement on the topic. Secondly, in her view, the discussions were likely to influence the outcome of the elections in favour of the opposition NDC as anger against the NPP was growing over political culpability in the issue. Gyamfua feared that her party would lose votes in galamsey areas, particularly in the NPP's stronghold Ashanti Region, if it were to enforce existing environmental and mining regulations. Calls such as Gyamfua's to wait with demands for a galamsey debate until after the 7 December elections raised eyebrows, as it clearly contravened the wishes of the electorate, which demanded not a discussion but concrete solutions to the existential threats posed by galamsey. As a result, public opinion crystalised around the idea that if Ghana was to decisively deal with the galamsey menace, there would have to be a political earthquake.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this notion was particularly pronounced in galamsey communities. Based on our ethnographic observations of the campaign trail of both major parties, it became evident that people in these communities had galamsey on their radar due to its environmental devastation and pollution of waterbodies, which most urgently found expression in the associated shortages of safe drinking water. In Prestea, for instance, even galamseyers called on the state to act decisively against the negative effects of the practice, even if it meant a loss of their livelihoods. Yet, as one interlocutor in Ashanti Region's Amansie South District expressed the wide-spread resignation in an interview in early-December 2024: “I have never heard our PC [parliamentary candidate] talk about galamsey, let alone talk about water. The politicians are trying to avoid the whole discussion about galamsey!”

Religious Endorsements and the Question of Accountability

Another influential aspect of elections in Ghana is the role played by religious actors and institutions. Although religion is widely recognised as having a highly public and political role in Ghana, it is often not analysed in relation to elections. This lack of analysis is surprising because, traditionally, mission churches (or mainline churches) have seen their role as society watchdogs, informing the electorate about their political responsibilities in times of elections. Moreover, religious bodies have come together in peace marches to share messages of coexistence ahead of elections. These marches have typically been attended by the Office of the Chief Imam of Ghana, the Christian Council, and the Electoral Commission and supported by embassies, celebrities, and dignitaries. Other ways of looking at the role of religion in elections are to look beyond religion as institutions and actors and to look at the association between religion and politics in ways that transgress the material/immaterial divide. Ebenezer Obadare (2018) has, for example, talked about the overlap between a Pentecostal elite and the political elite in Nigeria as guided by spiritual causality or demonology, which means that the political elite refer to spiritual interventions and reasons when explaining unfortunate events, economic decline, or inflation. He argues that this influences the political contract between politicians and citizens.

In the case of Ghana, we have seen another aspect of this association, which is the prophesising of election results by Pentecostal and neo-prophetic pastors. Being able to prophesise an election result is a sign of the spiritual and charismatic power of a pastor, but prophesising can also have direct influence on the reputation of a political candidate. Both presidential candidates were prophesised to win by among others Prophet Nigel Gaisie, Prophet Victor Kusi Boateng, and Rev. Isaac Owusu-Bempah. Therefore, the two candidates of the major political parties, Mahama and Bawumia, were eager to show their alliance with Christian leaders and support to churches. Besides prophesising results, some Christian leaders also explained that they were active during the election process itself, for instance by “neutralising spiritual attacks” and by spiritually discouraging people in the Ashanti region of Ghana (who traditionally vote for NPP) to go out and vote. In their campaigns, both candidates explicitly addressed the role of the churches for Ghana's development as well as for its future economic reconstruction (Haynes, 2024). Moreover, in October 2024 Mahama called on the clergy to pray for the elections; an event in which Mahama was also prayed for and guided by Chrisitan leaders. Reverend Owusu-Bempah, who is known as being close to the NPP, led the prayers for Mahama. This prayer was by many observers seen as an endorsement of Mahama by some of the prominent Christian leaders. Bawumia equally visited a prayer camp close to Accra to receive their prayers. Both candidates also attended Islamic prayer sessions, a demonstration of the importance of cultivating relationships with leaders of Ghana's major religious communities irrespective of the candidate's own religious background.

These occasions drew attention from the general public as well as the many political talk shows in Ghana. One event that received particular attention was a visit by Bawumia to the church of Prophet Adom Kyei-Duah, who is perceived by some as a controversial pastor. A clip from the visit, in which Bawumia stands with a white cloth covering his head while Prophet Kyei-Duah prays for him, went viral and led to many humoristic commentaries on how politicians seek pastors’ blessing to gain more votes. Generally, there is a tradition of seeking consultations and prayers from religious leaders, which is seen as uncontroversial and as an act of humility and acknowledgement of the role of God in daily and political affairs. But this particular event came to be seen as more tactical, probably due to the reputation of the prophet himself. One person commented on social media: “Let's focus on actions, not just prayers.” Moreover, Bawumia being a Muslim himself, was seen as candidate who could secure the Muslim ticket in Southern Ghana, which is majority Christian but has an important Muslim community with economic and political influence. However, Bawumia's ability and willingness to participate in religious events of different faiths helped downplay his identity as a Muslim, allowing him to be seen as a politician that did not prioritise one particular religion.

Beyond politicians’ efforts to court religious leaders, religion entered the electoral fray through scandal over the National Cathedral project. Religious leaders and the former Nana Akufo-Addo government were accused of corruption, mismanagement of funds and lack of accountability in this project which set out to build a big National Cathedral in the heart of Accra with a library and museum. The architectural design was done by renowned architect Sir David Adjaye with funds raised from patrons in the sizable Ghanaian diaspora in the United States and elsewhere. Journalists, politicians from the opposition, and citizens were highly critical, and some high-level pastors left the board of the National Cathedral project. This case and the role it played in the election campaign show that despite trends of sacralisation of politics and Christian nationalism in Ghana, public concern with justice and accountability and the misuse of funds outweighed public acceptance of the spiritual immunity of pastors and their protection of the political elite. Ordinary Ghanaians are highly concerned with the public purse and accountability even when religious leaders are involved.

Ghana's Democratic Resilience in the Context of the General Global Democratic Decline

In 2023, Ghana marked three decades of constitutional rule, yet this important milestone was not widely celebrated by the governing NPP. The lack of celebration was perhaps symbolic of the government's wavering commitment to constitutional constraints and democratic institutions. Globally, democracy has been declining, and authoritarianism is on the rise (Levitsky and Way, 2025). Ghana has not been entirely immune to this global democratic decline.

Overall, Ghana's democracy declined under the NPP administration (Afrobarometer, 2022). With an agenda to retain political power for the NPP, President Nana Akufo-Addo became increasingly heavy-handed and deliberately weakened independent state institutions. The governance style of President Akufo-Addo weakened some independent constitutional bodies (CDD-Ghana, 2021). Appointments to the Supreme Court (SC) and court judgements appeared to show executive overreach. For example, Justice Ernest Yao Gaewu, a former NPP parliamentary candidate (Ho Central and Ho West in 2012 and 2016) was first appointed to the High Court in 2018 and within two years appointed to the SC – a very short time that suggests his promotion was not based on experience but on politics. At the same time, the political cases decided by the SC increasingly favoured the NPP, a trend that raised questions about the court's partiality. The regime's actions undermined the SC's credibility and weakened public confidence in the judiciary's independence. The determination of one's citizenship using birth certificate was ruled unacceptable by the court and birth certificates became insufficient to determine Ghanaian citizenship. Citizens of the Santrokofi, Apkafu, Lolobi and Lipke district (SALL) were denied representation in parliament because of constituency boundary changes by the EC. And the President forced the Auditor General Daniel Domelovo to proceed on annual leave as forced retirement. Each of these cases went to the SC, but it delayed in its ruling effectively allowing the government to do as it pleased.

Beyond the courts, when the Electoral Commission resisted executive manipulation, President Akufo-Addo sacked the chair, Charlotte Osei. And his appointments of Jean Mensa, Bossman Asare, Peter Appiahene, and Akua Ofori Boateng caused credibility issues for the body due to suspicions of partisanship. In addition, the Akufo-Addo administration used more subtle means to erode democratic governance in Ghana, and the country's reputation for conducting free and fair elections was tarnished by electoral violence. The last presidential polls before 2024 recorded eight fatalities.

The governing party also pursued an agenda to subtly undermine Ghana's constitutionally mandated two-terms for a regime with the campaign promise to “break the eight” and positioning Bawumia as a close ally of Akufo-Addo. The actions of the administration in the past seven years showed that the NPP worked towards a continuation after Akufo-Addo's presidency. The opposition NDC campaigned for maintaining the status quo.

Despite these infractions, the outcome of the elections showed that Ghana's democracy is resilient. Wolfgang Merkel (2023) defines democratic resilience as the ability of a state to absorb external and internal crises and to adapt/mitigate the challenges without retreating from democratic practice. Like other countries, Ghana has struggled to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused massive fiscal disruptions to its economy. And, in the years before the 2024 election, the Akufo-Addo administration struggled to resolve the many governance challenges that the country encountered. Nevertheless, Ghana has succeeded in institutionalising a vibrant multi-party system. We observe the resilience of Ghanaian democracy despite a host of such crises.

Resilient democracies ensure political pluralism, free and fairs elections and the enjoyment of civil liberties. This resilience in Ghana has depended on the work of opposition parties and civil society. For example, when the Akufo-Addo administration attempted to include the Ghana Armed Forces in the election security architecture, opposition parties and civil society resisted. In addition, the vigilance of citizens at polling stations across the country ensured a higher level of professionalism among staff of the Electoral Commission. Popular support for democracy remains strong in Ghana despite the decline in the quality of governance in the last seven years. The outcome of the December 2024 election provides evidence that Ghana's democracy is resilient. Nevertheless, for democracy to remain resilient in Ghana, the separation of powers and the functioning of independent institutions must be strengthened.

Conclusion

Connecting our multi-disciplinary perspectives is the observations that in 2024 elections Ghanaians expressed a renewed demand for accountability. The demystification of data and technology as panacea for development has shown that Ghana's complex socio-political problems cannot be solved through technological shortcuts alone. Concerns about the future liveability of the Ghanaian environment brought to the fore not only Ghanaians’ existential concerns but ultimately also their demands for concrete responses that include the political root-causes of the ecological crisis. The two major parties’ flagbearers’ alignment with religious bodies, at a symbolic level, represented an acknowledgement of these concerns around accountability and trustworthiness, though not entirely unproblematically. Attempts to win the support of several major religious groups worked to further erode claims to authenticity, while Ghanaians held the main parties’ candidates to account, demanding action rather than prayer, in the face of the populations’ hardships.

We believe that the Ghanaian elections first and foremost need to be seen in light of the existential questions like water and food security, and not least the perceived dismantling of Ghana's democratic institutions. Combined with allegations of elites circumventing the law for personal and political gains (such as in illegal gold mining), Ghanaian voters loudly called for a renewal of accountability. In Ghana's 2024 election, taking voters’ concerns seriously proved to be the winning strategy: The NPP's defeat was a result of a clear disconnect between the electorate and the ruling government, as well as a tall list of unfulfilled promises of the NPP's previous two administrations. At the same time, the 2024 elections are testament to the resilience of Ghanaian democracy. Rumours of the incumbent's intent to rig the elections resulted in extra vigilance by the general populace and, despite a host of controversies that accompanied the elections, Ghana again has proven its commitment to peaceful transfer of power.