Ethnicity in Electoral Politics in Ghana: Colonial Legacies and the Constitution as Determinants

Abstract

This paper assesses political allegiances in Ghana, positioning its ethno-political divide into the historical contexts of institutional design and colonialism in Africa. It argues that whilst the colonial policy of Indirect Rule solidified ethnicity in Africa, post-colonial governments used it differently, with varying effects on institutional design and state-building. In concert with other constitutional provisions, Ghana’s Article 55 of 1992 Constitution has curtailed extreme ethnic politics through the limit it places on ethnicity in party politics. Whilst outlawing ethnicity in politics, the constitution provides other depoliticised outlets for expressing diversity, especially through decentralisation and legitimisation of chieftaincy institutions. Despite these safeguarding provisions, the Asantes and Ewes have consistently taken entrenched political positions since 1992, and this article explicates some of the drivers using longitudinal election results. It draws on institutional design complexities in multi-ethnic societies in Africa to propose lessons and convey implications for Ghana’s Fourth Republic Constitution.

Keywords

Institutional Design Ethnicity Ghana Elections Asante and Ewe Fourth Republic Constitution Colonial Legacy

Introduction

This paper argues that whilst colonialism solidified ethnicity in Africa, all post-colonial states remained multi-ethnic and experimented different institutional models to accommodate their diversity, with successes, failures and lessons. After several failed attempts, Ghana has succeeded in curtailing ethnicity in party politics through a unitary-state framework that acknowledges, tames and offers constructive outlets for expressing agency in diversity. Despite the constitutional safeguards founds in Articles 55, 248 and 276 that ban the comingling of ethnicity and party politics, two ethnic groups – the Asantes of the Ashanti Region and Ewes of the Volta Region – have consistently taken entrenched political positions (Arthur, 2009; Gyimah-Boadi and Asante, 2006). Since Ghana’s Fourth Republic in 1992, two political parties have dominated politics in the country. The New Patriotic Party (NPP) garnered an average of 71% of votes in the Ashanti Region and 11% in the Volta Region (see origins in Austin and Tordoff, 1960), whilst the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has gotten on average 87% in the Volta and 27% in the Ashanti regions. Votes in all other regions have swung from time to time, although some preference for the NDC has been found among the Mole-Dagbanli people in the three northern regions of Ghana.

The paper discusses this phenomenon within the broader context of institutional design dilemmas in post-colonial multi-ethnic states in Africa. The foundation of ethnicity and its derivation as a colonial construct in Africa is discussed next. This is followed by analysis of Ghana’s (and Africa’s) search for institutional frameworks that accounts for its multi-ethnic identities. Evidence of electoral outcomes in the Ashanti and Volta regions since 1992 will then be used to explicate the complexities, followed by implications for Ghana’s Fourth Republic.

Origins and Dilemma of Ethnicity in Africa

To understand how ethnicity intersects with politics, it is important to understand its origins. In Africa, ethnicity is an important determinant of identity. People are socialised to believe that each person belongs to a community with shared origins, history, and identity. Contrary to the primordialist definition of ethnicity as a timeless phenomenon that binds people through blood, nature and mind, this paper adopts the utilitarian perspective – an ascribed identity that is formed out of common history, language and way of life. It is a shared culture and consciousness bounded by space and time (Young, 2002).

Prior to European encounters, people in Africa ‘belonged simultaneously to a multiplicity of social networks: nuclear and extended families, lineages’, gender networks, generational transition groups, religious groups of practice, chieftaincy systems and communities (Arthur, 2009: 48; Young, 2002). They lived in a complex world of interrelationships, defining and redefining their worlds until the European colonisers disrupted the fluid social order in order to demarcate and govern (Berman, 1998; Lonsdale, 1977; MacArthur, 2013; Southall, 2010; Spear, 2003). The arbitrary division of African peoples into countries at the Berlin Conference (1884–1885) was pivotal in this agenda. In Kenya for instance, up until the 1930s, neither the Luhya nor other ethnic groups in western Kenya existed ‘as a discrete ethnic group’ (Kanyoro, 1983; MacArthur, 2013: 352). The Luhya ‘reflected the multiple diverse, competing and at times overlapping forms of identification’ across Eastern Africa (MacArthur, 2013: 352).

In pre-colonial West Africa, Boahen (1966) used John Fage’s writings and Kano Chronicles to trace the fluid socio-economic relationships that existed between the Asante-speaking people of the forest areas, the Gonja speakers of the savannah, the people of Jenne and Timbuctu and the Hausa people across present-day Benin and Nigeria. They traded in kola nuts, beads, gold, salt and ‘clothing from the Sahara and the Barbary states’ during the ascendance of the Mali empire (Boahen, 1966: 215). By the 1420s, the Gonja speakers were transporting cola nuts to the Hausaland in Nigeria, migrating and cross-settling among themselves. Political systems were designed mainly for utilitarian purposes – regulating business and social order (Hair, 1968; Kimble, 1937). Though intersectionality is a modern concept coined by feminist scholar Kimberle Crenshaw to draw attention to the exclusionary theorising of identity (Carastathis, 2016; Hancock, 2007), people in pre-colonial times lived in intersectional holism with overlapping allegiances and identities.

During colonialism, however, European colonisers designed ‘ethnic templates’ to ‘codify, and map an ethnic geography’ for their ‘conquered domains’ to aid colonial rule (Young, 2002: 1). The British policy of indirect rule through chiefs, for instance, meant that people needed to be categorised into static groups to make colonial administration easier. The socio-ethnographic boundaries that evolved were laden with assumptions of homogeneity.

The end of colonialism kickstarted a complex recalibration of ethnicity by African nationalists. Whilst some saw its value for mobilising political support, others frowned upon it as divisive. Whereas Jomo Kenyatta used ethnicity to galvanise political support in Kenya, the Gold Coast’s Ashanti National Liberation Movement (NLM) mobilised Asantes to resist the unitary-state agenda of Kwame Nkrumah (Allman, 1993, 1990; Rathbone, 1999, 1973). In Guinea, Ahmed Sekou Touré declared that soon enough, ‘no one will remember the tribal, ethnic, or religious rivalries’ because it had ‘caused so much damage’ to the country (Touré, 1959: 28). Similarly, in 1958, Nkrumah declared as illegal, the use of ethnicity to mobilise political support in Ghana. Ethnicity has persisted in Africa and continues to influence political choices (Anderson, 2006; Horowitz, 2000; Lentz and Nugent, 2000; Limenopoulou, 2004; Vignoles et al., 2011) and affiliations (Adam, 1995; Arthur, 2009; Chandra, 2007; Fox et al., 2011; Gutiérrez-Romero, 2010; Wonkeryor, 2007).

Thus, any discussion of ethnicity is a discussion of identity, since therein the notion of ethnicity is an admission of identity. Identity forms out of a synthesis of ‘life experiences, cues from others and reflection on both’, which applies not only to individual identities, but also communal ones (Lebow, 2012: 49). Studies done in Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and elsewhere suggest that people prioritise ethnic considerations in political affairs, partly because of its instrumental value (Adam, 1995; Fjelde and Höglund, 2016; Gutiérrez-Romero, 2010; Limenopoulou, 2004; McCauley, 2017). Ethnicity is an important channel for political participation, and adherents often resist any attempt to truncate this channel. In this context, multi-ethnic countries in Africa, like Ghana and Nigeria, have trialled multiple models of institutions for nation-building. The next section discusses these complexities.

Institutional Design Complexities in Multi-Ethnic States

Ghana’s search for sustainable unitary institutional framework has been complicated by vulnerabilities associated with ethnicity, socio-economic decadence and political hegemony of the military and police. The country has experienced five successful (and several failed) coup d’états and four constitutional regimes, each of which was mediated by collective desire for socio-economic and political participation. At each stage, ethnicity remained a thorny issue, a hotbed for both conflict and consensus building. The inclusion of Article 55 in the 1992 Constitution, which forbids the formation of ethnic, regional and religious political parties, is illustrative of this ever-present challenge. Yet, completely silencing ethnic identities in political institutions is herculean, although it is possible when the ‘political relevance’ of the affected groups, the ‘particularistic landscape’ of politics and alternative channels for dealing with diversity in the political system are considered (Becker and Basedau, 2008: 10). In silencing ethnic voices in party politics with Article 55, the Constitution rather legalised alternative avenues for ethnic expression – actualised through the Local Government Act and Chieftaincy Act. Before returning to the case of Ghana, let us briefly situate the challenge within African context.

Multi-ethnic African countries have struggled to maintain social cohesion and political stability, faced with the tripartite challenge of socio-cultural frictions, democratic institutionalism and low legitimacy. Whilst both federalism and unitary systems have been trialled in various forms, the results have been almost the same (Franck, 1968; Wunsch, 2019a, 2019b; Wunsch and Olowu, 2019). The coping strategies often yield ‘unitarist reflexes’ that undermine state-building, development and liberties (Obadare, 2006: 395). This is widely the case whether it involves representative democracy or outright autocracy (Cheeseman, 2018a, 2018b; McCauley, 2017). Examples include Nigeria’s federalism that has had several setbacks instigated by ethnicity, religion and natural resource governance (Adamolekun and Kincaid, 1991; Bah, 2005; Diamond, 1988; LeVan, 2015; Obi and Oriola, 2018; Suberu, 1993), the unitary system of Kenya that was marred by ethno-clientelist grievances and political violence prior to the 2010 devolution (Fjelde and Höglund, 2018; Gutiérrez-Romero, 2010; Orr, 2019; Vanden Eynde et al., 2018) and the suppressive regime of Sudan’s Al Bashir that undermined non-Arab participation in public life until its downfall in 2019 (Arman, 2019; Elnaiem, 2019; Sefa-Nyarko, 2016a).

Both Federation – ‘the need for people and polities to unite for common purposes yet remain separate to preserve their respective integrities’ (Elazar, 1987: 1) – and unitary states have widely been experimented in post-colonial institution-building with mixed results. Federations like the Ghana–Guinea–Mali and the Senegambian Confederation never took off, and Nigeria’s has generated both democrats and autocrats. Similarly, unitary approaches have generated ‘authoritarian unitarism’, found for instance in Gabon, Uganda and Didier Ratsiraka’s Madagascar (Adamolekun and Kincaid, 1991: 174). Ethiopia’s unique ethno-federal model, adopted in 1991, has produced mixed results around identity, freedoms, equity and national integration (Abbink, 2011).

The trajectory of institutional experimentation in Nigeria – the most successful federation in Africa – and Ghana – the first unitary-state experiment in Africa, is discussed next.

Nigeria has experimented multiple institutional frameworks to contain the over 200 ethnic groups incorporated by the British in 1914, something which Bah (2005) and Obadare (2006) have described as cyclical. Its political institutions have traversed decentralised parliamentary regionalism (Adamolekun and Kincaid, 1991), presidential consociationalism and rotational presidency aimed at accommodating the interests of dominant ethnic groups, especially the top three – the northern Muslim Hausa-Fulani, the religiously bi-communal Yoruba of the west and the Christian-dominated Igbo of the east. Federalism became institutionalised through the 1946 Richards Constitution’s recognition of three states, which has progressively been sub-divided into 36 in response to ever-enduring crisis of multiple ethnic identities, dominion and reprisal (Suberu, 1993). Since independence in 1960, Nigeria has produced five coup d’états, a bloody civil war (1966–1970), secessionist uprising in the Niger Delta, northern ideological uprising of the Boko Haram and a nullified constitutional election (1994). Yet, Suberu (1993) sees federalism as both a cause and remedy for these challenges:

Although bedeviled by severe tensions that culminated in the horrific Biafran civil war of 1967–1970, the period of military rule that followed the collapse of the First Republic did succeed in transforming the country into a federation of 12 (later 19) states. This multistate federalism in turn helped to secure support for a united Nigeria from ethnic-minority communities in the secessionist Eastern region, to dilute the hegemony of the north, to distribute elements of the larger ethnic groups across more states, to furnish local administrative outlets for the huge oil windfalls of the 1970s, and, in general, to contain the disintegrative tendencies inherent in Nigeria’s cultural diversity (Suberu, 1993: 41).

The tensions between democratisation, state-building and ethnicity have driven the discourse through conflicts and consensus. During the transitions, the clamour for representative and accountable governance inspired citizens to campaign for ‘reforms geared toward a more inclusive democracy and nation-state’, making institutional reforms ‘lively, albeit troublesome, projects’ (Bah, 2005: 1). Such breakdowns and revivals, Bah (2005) asserts, are characteristic of a resilient society that acknowledges that there are surmountable fault lines. The Fourth Federal Constitutional Republic (1999) has persisted, even if afflicted with several challenges around the inequitable distribution of public goods and widening north–south socio-economic inequality.

In contrast, Ghana has only experimented a unitary system despite the vigorous clamour for federalism by the Asante National Liberation Movement (NLM) between 1954 and 1957, something that was opposed by Kwame Nkrumah. The struggle to deal with ethnic diversity can be dated even further to the 1920s, when the British Colonial government governed through the traditional authorities, the Oman Council, as part of its ‘Indirect Rule’ – under the assumption that the traditional authorities represented various ethnic groups. The formation of the Native Administration and Provincial Council of Chiefs, amidst contestation of legitimacy by the merchants and educated class, affirm this (Gale, 1973; Kimble, 1963). In 1920, the National Congress of West Africa travelled to London to present petitions against the applicability of the Policy of Indirect Rule to the Secretary of State, in defiance of governor Guggisberg, who upon hearing of it, described them through a cable to London as representing ‘no one except themselves’ (Agbodeka, 1972: 60).

This contestation and British defence of the chieftaincy systems continued until after the Accra Rioting of 1948 and subsequent Nkrumah regime of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) (1951–1966). Nkrumah challenged the legitimacy of the Legislative Assembly that was made up of illiterate chiefs (Allman, 1993) and completely ruled out any possibility of devolving authority to the three territories. These were the primary factors that triggered the formation of the Asante NLM in 1954 (Allman, 1993, 1990; Gold Coast, 1953; Wilks, 1989). Nkrumah crushed the NLM with the Avoidance of Discrimination Act (1957) and Preventive Detention Act (1958) (Biney, 2011a). Another fault line at independence was the ideological differences between Nkrumah (socialism) and the opposition (liberalism) (Biney, 2011b; Fuller, 2014).

In trialling effective ways to consolidate its legitimacy, the Nkrumah government wobbled from a hybrid of colonial-indigenous leadership (1951–1957) to Westminster-style parliamentary democracy (1957–1960), and through American-style presidential republic (1960–1963), to a coercive one-party system (1963–1966) that led to its demise in 1966 (Apter, 2008, 2015). During this period, the people of Trans Volta Togoland were integrated through a contested Plebiscite (Cogneau and Moradi, 2014),¹ the resource-rich Asante Territory resisted integration through the NLM and Asante chiefs (Allman, 1990; Beckman, 1974; Nkrumah, 1968), and people of the Northern Territory were disappointed that the British reneged on their promise to protect them against southern domination (Bening, 1984; The British Empire, 1985).

Ethnicity remained debilitating to nation-building in the 1960s and 1970s, being described by Rothchild (1978: 1) and Smock and Smock (1975: 223) as ‘more salient’ in people’s lives than other ‘highly significant cleavages of modern Ghana (sub-region, age, class, income, education, and so forth)’. Nevertheless, no ethnic group domineered political regimes. Power shifted from the southern Akan-centric regime of Nkrumah’s CPP; through the Ga-Ewe alliances of Kotoka and Afrifa’s National Liberation Council (NLC); the mid-Akan conglomerations of Busia’s Second Republican Progress Party (PP); the ethnically non-aligned military regime of Acheampong (1972 to 1979); the Mole-Dagbanli and ethnic minority constellation of Limann’s Third Republic; and to the Ewe and Mole-Dagbanli ruling cliché of Rawlings’ two military regimes starting in 1979 and 1981 (Chazan, 1982: 461), which metamorphosed into the NDC in the Fourth Republic.

Ironically, the least-discussed Ignatius Kutu Acheampong military regime, the National Redemption Council (NRC), set a pace in 1972 that temporarily doused the hitherto heightened politicisation of ethnicity (Rothchild, 1978). Yet, when it changed to become the Supreme Military Council (SMC) in 1975, it unleashed the most ethno-political tensions until it was toppled by Rawlings in 1979. Being a pivotal period that ushered in the Rawlings regime and subsequent introduction of Article 55, the Acheampong regime will be discussed in detail here.

Through radical reforms that redefined the centre of power, Acheampong developed ‘a military-bureaucratic-chief alliance that intentionally by-passed mediatory structures of either vertical or horizontal order’, forming ‘the most ethnically balanced government’ since independence by ‘creating regional commissioners with cabinet standing’ (Chazan, 1982: 464, 465). This included a 36-member Consultative Advisory Committee comprising farmers, traditional leaders, the military and other professionals, and a 33-member National Economic Planning Council (Owusu, 1975). These measures redistributed the sphere of influence, deflecting it from ethnic cleavages to professional and result-oriented politics. He banned the public display of ethnic symbols and removed the word tribe from official documents (Government of Ghana, 1974). These successfully tamed ethnicity in politics in the first three years (1972–1975), particularly due to the widespread support for, and intense focus on, the Operation Feed Yourself (OFY) economic programme for self-reliance.

However, things began to go wrong that reignited ethnic cleavages from 1975. First, there was no strategy for the OFY beyond the second year. Second, international financial institutions placed crippling embargo on Ghana over government’s decision to default on its external financial obligations. Third, the re-emergence of Ewe secessionist aspirations reignited violent contestations over the 1956 UN Plebiscite (Smock and Smock, 1975). Finally, several attempted coups were staged in the mid-1970s. These unsettled the Acheampong government, which became repressive and inward-looking. It reconstituted as SMC, disbanded the institutionalised cooperation between the military, bureaucrats and chiefs, and drew cabinet members and political leaders solely from the military with attendant abuse of civil liberties (Owusu, 1975).

The SMC attracted ‘immediate class and ethnic response’ (Chazan, 1982: 466). Whilst ethnicity was a mobilising factor for dissent (Rothchild, 1978), it had become complex, expressed in variations as way of life, language, place of origin, traditional political affiliation, kinship and local community – due to increased mobility (Ladouceur, 1979). In response to the rising dissent, the SMC proposed an exit strategy in the form of the Union Government (Unigov) in 1977 – a customised military-civilian democracy without political parties (Hansen and Collins, 1980; Owusu, 1979). This was the last straw. Its rejection galvanised everyone – businessmen, religious leaders, market women, farmers, students, academics, ethnic groups – around ‘a common, immediate focus for dissent’, a gem that was lacking previously (Chazan, 1982: 469). The Asante and other Akans, Ga and Ewe spearheaded anti-Unigov activism, whilst a small minority mobilised support for the government. The fault line was also roughly along the contours of ex-PP supporters (anti-Unigov) and ex-CPP supporters (pro-Unigov). Notably, this division was nuanced by ethnic, rural, urban and class complexities:

[A]s political considerations shifted from challenging the structure of state power to querying its validity as local interests began to displace national ones, the preoccupation with harnessing ethnic identity was replaced by an overriding concern with utility and instrumentality. . .. By the end of Acheampong’s rule, it was difficult – if not impossible – to speak of the politics of ethnicity without reference to broader patterns of political conflict, or to deal with ethnicity, even in the most fluid sense. (Chazan, 1982: 473)

The June 1979 coup d’état led by Jerry Rawlings did not surprise many. Forming the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), it overthrew the disjointed regimes of SMC I (led by Acheampong until July 1978) and SMC II (led by Frederick Akuffo). Rawlings’ AFRC followed-through with a multi-party political process initiated by Akuffo, and handed over to a civilian government after a so-called ‘cleaning-up’ exercise that imprisoned many and executed eight senior military officers – including three former heads of state (Hansen and Collins, 1980: 3). Political mobilisation was still underpinned by regional, ethnic and religious identities, and further undermined the Hilla Limann-led government that took over from Rawlings. Rawlings seized power again in December 1981, banned all political parties and formed the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), which lasted 11 years before a return to multi-party democracy in 1992.

How Ghana’s Fourth Republic Deals with Ethnicity

The 1992 Constitution eliminated ethnicity from politics in three ways. First, Article 55(4)(7) outlawed ethnic, regional and faith-based political parties (Republic of Ghana, 1992). Second, due to the closeness between chiefs and ethnicity, Article 276(1) legitimised and depoliticised chieftaincy institutions as follows: ‘A chief shall not take part in active politics’ and should ‘abdicate his stool or skin’ if he decides to do so. Third, although it has devolved some executive powers to the local assemblies, it has barred all party politics from local elections. Article 248(2) states that no political party should ‘endorse, sponsor, offer a platform to or in anyway campaign for or against a candidate seeking election to a District Assembly or any lower local government unit’.

To compensate for this silencing of ethnic, religious and regional voices in party politics, two major laws have been introduced. The first is the Local Government Act, 1993 (Act 462), which devolves some executive power to the local assemblies. This Act is inspired by Articles 240–256 of the Constitution that makes provisions for decentralisation and creation of Local Government Authority. The second is the Chieftaincy Act, 2008 (Act 759), which takes inspiration from Articles 270-277 of the 1992 Constitution. This Act has established Chieftaincy as dual political institution with customary authority. Article 274(3)(d) particularly confers Regional House of Chiefs with ‘original jurisdiction’ over Paramount Chiefs, who themselves are allowed inalienable customary rights within their localities (See Kludze, 1998). Currently, there are 275 local assemblies and 16 Regional Houses of Chiefs, each of which is accorded customary privileges if they exercise their authority without meddling in party politics.

Whilst implementation challenges exist, these provisions have effectively integrated federal properties into Ghana’s unitary system of governance, decentralising authority to accommodate social and political diversity, whilst ensuring that chieftaincy and ethnicity remain alien to electoral politics. Arthur (2009) and Sandbrook (2000) insist that these have contributed to the success of Ghana’s Fourth Republic.

The Persistence of Ethnicity in Ghana’s Fourth Republic

The safeguards provided by Articles 55, 248 and 276 have discouraged the formation of ethnic political parties, yet, the Asantes and Ewes unflinchingly support the NPP and NDC, respectively. Whilst there are no ethnically homogenous regions in Ghana (Figure 1), this analysis considers the Volta and Ashanti regions as proxies for Asantes and Ewes respectively, since 76.4% of residents in the Ashanti Region are Asantes and 71.7% of those in the Volta Region are ethnic Ewes (Ghana Statistical Service, 2014: 10).

Figure 1.

The Map of Ghana Showing Ethnically Homogenous Voting Patterns Since 1992.

Although no widespread regional and ethnic political mobilisations are evident in the Fourth Republic, Arthur (2009: 68) agrees that this is the case among the Asantes and Ewes, whose political support for the NPP and NDC are not merely expressed in words (Amidu, 2012; Fridy, 2007; Ghana News Agency, 2012),² but are translated into votes cast (Figures 2 –4).³

Figure 2.

Voting patterns in Volta Region, from 1992 to 2016.

Figure 3.

Voting patterns in Asante Region, from 1992 to 2016.

Figure 4.

Voting patterns in the three Northern Regions, from 1992 to 2016¹.

In the Volta region, the NDC got more than 82% of all votes cast between 1992 and 2016, gaining a high of almost 95% in 1996 (Figure 2). On the other hand, the highest it ever got in the Asante Region was about 33%. In the year 2000, whilst it got more than 86% in the Volta Region, it got less than a quarter in the Asante Region (Figure 3).

On the other hand, the highest percentage of votes cast for the NPP in the Volta region was 17.4% in 2016 (Figure 2). Yet, in that same year, it got more than three-quarters of all votes cast in the Ashanti Region (Figure 3). The least the NPP ever got in the Ashanti Region was 60.5%, in 1992, reaching a high of 76% in 2016.

Understanding the Asante–Ewe Ethno-Politics

Whilst admitting a clear divide in ethnic voting in the Ashanti and Volta regions, Ayee (2008) cautions the description of this pattern as Asante–Ewe ethnicity since intermarriage and socio-economic mobility create multi-ethnic identities (Gyekye, 1997; Nukunya, 1992). This section assesses reasons for this Asante–Ewe ethnic cleavages to the NPP and NDC.

Socio-Cultural Background of Presidential Candidates

There is no evidence that the ethnic background of presidential aspirants matter, although generally, all political parties are conscious about ethnic and regional dynamics when choosing candidates (Gyimah-Boadi and Debrah, 2008). In the Volta Region, whilst John Rawlings received massive votes, his two successors – John Mills and John Mahama – attracted equal measure of endorsement. The NPP candidates have only managed an average of 10.6% votes cast there. In the Ashanti Region, all NPP candidates have garnered massive support, even though only John Kufuor is an Asante. In the Mole-Dagbanli area, John Mahama did not attract significantly higher votes than other NDC candidates. The Peoples National Convention (PNC), which has always presented candidates from Mole-Dagbanli, has gotten an average of 12% votes between 1992 and 2008, and under 1% in 2016. Thus, unlike political polarisation based on a candidate’s ethnicity as happens elsewhere (Gutiérrez-Romero, 2010; Horowitz, 2000), the Asante–Ewe divide is essentially different and does not contravene Article 55. Table 1 illustrates the ethnic backgrounds of the presidential candidates since 1992.

Table 1.

Table 1: The Ethnic Origins of the Presidential Candidates of the Three Political Parties, 1992–2016.

Political Parties	Year(s) Contested	Presidential Candidate	Ethnic Origin
NDC	1992, 1996	J. J. Rawlings	Ewe
	2000, 2004, 2008	J. E. A. Mills	Fante
	2016	John Mahama	Mole-Dagbanli
NPP	1992	A. Adu-Boahene	Asante
	1996, 2000, 2004	J. A. Kufuor	Asante
	2008	Nana Akuffo-Addo	Akyem
	2016	Nana Akuffo-Addo	Akyem
PNC	1992	Hilla Limann	Mole-Dagbanli
	1996, 2000, 2004, 2008	Edward Mahama	Mole-Dagbanli
	2016	Edward Mahama	Mole-Dagbanli

Differences in Ideology, Policies and Practice

The most compelling elements of electoral democracy are its competitiveness, representation and unpredictability. However, Minion (2004) concluded that elections in the Ashanti and Volta regions are not competitive, and outcomes are often predictable. Though it is the swing regions (Brong-Ahafo, Central, Eastern, Greater Accra, Western) that determine electoral outcomes, the Asante–Ewe voting has implications for democratic relevance in Ghana, since the combined population of both regions is over a quarter (28.8%) of the total population of Ghana (Ghana Statistical Service, 2013). Moreover, in 2008, 26.7% of all registered voters in Ghana were from the two regions.

This is further complicated by the lack of discernible influencers of choice – ideology, policies and programmes, although Asantes have always supported the Danquah-Busia tradition: the NLM (1956), PP (1969), Popular Front Party (1979) and NPP (since 1992) (Chazan, 1982; Minion, 2004). The NPP is elitist in nature and recruits leaders among lawyers, academics and middle-class businesspeople. The Ewes, on the other hand, have shifted from supporting the erstwhile secessionist Togoland Congress in 1956, through vehemently opposing Busia’s liberal democratic PP government (1969–1972), and to endorsing Rawlings’ populist social democracy. The bloody clashes they had with the Busia government over their secessionist aspirations have pitched them against all pro-Busia cleavages. Horowitz offers some meaning to this, that ‘multipartyism thrive on ideological distance and entrenches the polarisation of opinion’ (Horowitz, 2000: 291).

However, there is no discernible ideological difference between the NDC and the NPP in practice. Whilst the NPP claims to be capitalist-oriented (Ayee, 2008), most of its programmes are socialist-oriented (Arthur, 2014), including the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), National School Feeding Programme, Capitation Grants, Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP) and the Free Senior High School programme. One exception is the privatisation of the Ghana Telecommunication Corporation in 2007, now Vodafone Ghana. On the other hand, the (P)NDC has implemented many capitalist-oriented programmes, including the 1987–1988 Divestiture Implementation Programme that privatised almost all national corporations as part of the IMF-sponsored Structural Adjustment Programme (Agyemang and Castellini, 2015; Srem-Sai, 2018).

Political Coercion

No evidence of direct coercion for conformity exist. Ghana is among the most democratic countries in Africa (Department of State, 2008). In 2019, it was ranked among the highest on Rule of Law (90.6%), second only to Mauritius (Mo Ibrahim Foundation, 2019: 43). Ghana also scored highly on Political Participation and National Security, being consistently ranked among the top seven countries (overall) in Africa. However, there is some social pressure to conform in both regions. For instance, unlike in the swing regions where aggrieved parliamentary candidates often resign from the respective parties to go independent, the two regions hardly experience this since a parliamentary candidate’s rate of success depends on whether they contest on the ticket of the NPP or the NDC. In 2012, NDC candidates won all 26 parliamentary seats in the Volta Region, whilst NPP candidates won 42 out of the 47 seats in the Asante Region. The other five seats, won by the NDC in Ashanti Region, were in migrant constituencies. The trend has remained substantially the same.

Accrued Benefits and Ownership

The ethno-political upheavals in multi-ethnic societies are often instigated by grievances over resource allocation and political participation. However, the Asante–Ewe cleavage is different. Article 55 forbids ethnic ownership of political parties, and local assembly elections exclude political parties. Additionally, the most senior local government official, the District or Municipal Chief Executive, is appointed by the president of Ghana. Thus, political choices are not based on benefits that will directly accrue to voters. Moreover, although the (P)NDC has governed Ghana the longest, the Volta Region remains one of the poorest (Shepherd et al., 2006). Also, the support base of the NDC are among the most economically marginalised (Fox et al., 2011). Anecdotal evidence suggests that the NPP implemented more developmental projects in the Volta Region than the NDC, and less in the Ashanti Region than elsewhere.⁴ Neither did the post-Rawlings NDC regimes appoint more Ewes to political positions. Thus, the third hypothesis of Anthony Downs (1957: 137), that parties ‘formulate policies and serve interest groups in order to gain office’ is contestable in this case.

Tensions Between Ethnic and National Identities

The widespread extended family system among Akans and Ewes create strong ethnic affinity (Nukunya, 1992), making members feel more connected to their respective ethnic groups than other classifications. This enhances ‘in-group superiority’ (Horowitz, 2000: 293). It fosters more feeling of ethnic than national identity, especially because of Ghana’s historic struggle to institutionalise harmony between political participation, ethnicity and resource allocation. During the last years of the SMC and early years of the PNDC, when the intersection between ethnic identity and political affiliation was both blurred and criminalised, people coiled into their natural communities and nurtured localised meaning for themselves and their communities. Rawlings’ grassroot politics and subsequent decentralisation efforts further consolidated such craving for meaning and identity within the natural habitats. For many people, the presence of the state is least felt, as the state is unable to supply adequate public goods and services beyond urban centres. Additionally, prejudices between Asantes and Ewes have been solidified through memories and remembrance, which, as Pennebaker and Banasik (2013) and Sefa-Nyarko (2016b) argue, can be selective and politically manipulated. Perceptions are that ‘political opponents from other groups often make Ewe ethnicity a political issue’ (Levinson, 1998: 137), and the Ewes have always ‘feared Asante Dominion’ (Fox et al., 2011: 15; Ghana News Agency, 2012; Smock and Smock, 1975).

Implications for Ghana

In its modern (post-independence) conception, ethnicity remains both a uniting and dividing factor in multi-ethnic societies, influencing institutional design and national identities. Ghana’s experience of ethnicity in politics was chaotic at the onset of nationhood, further overwhelming Nkrumah’s independence government with its untamed destabilising elements until it was banned from party politics through the Avoidance of Discrimination Act. This restriction was both praised, for curtailing direct divisive politics, and condemned, for its use by the government to suppress political liberties, especially because it was combined with the Preventive Detention Act to arrest and detain people with arbitrary discretion. The opposition responded with guerrilla tactics that created more mayhem than before. After the dramatic end of Nkrumah’s government in 1966, ethnicity continued to influence national politics, truncated briefly by the NRC’s military-bureaucrat-chief model between 1972 and 1975, until the Constitution of the Fourth Republic institutionalised its eviction from party politics. This eviction has been successful to date.

Becker and Basedau (2008) have proposed that ethnicity in multi-ethnic societies can only be banned from institutional design if alternative pathways for ethnic self-expression are provided. The process of outlawing it must also be democratic, allowing for constructive representative decision-making. The success of excluding ethnicity from Ghana’s political institutions is attributable to two factors: first, the provision of alternative pathways for expressing ethnicity through decentralisation; and second, the initiation of representative decision-making about the exclusion through a referendum in 1992. Ghana has successfully tamed all the over 70 ethnic groups, excluding their public expression – symbols, colours, name, artefacts – from political party activities. Article 55(4)(7) has been instrumental in achieving this position, supported by several other articles in the Constitution and legislative instruments. The barring of chiefs from active party politics (Article 276) and the depoliticisation of local assemblies (Articles 248), have reinforced this exclusion.

In its stead, the Constitution has instituted several avenues for the constructive expression of social and geographic diversity. First, it provides options for local (and ethnically homogenous) communities to make decisions on their development and well-being and participate in local political processes without reference to political parties. Second, it affirms chieftaincy as a parallel system of governance, conferring chiefs as custodians of customary laws (Articles 270–276 of the Republic of Ghana, 1992). Both provisions have decentralised some executive powers and allowed chiefs to superintend over customary norms.

Although the depoliticisation of local assemblies and related elections has been critiqued – political parties subtly support local assembly candidates – it is still a relevant provision, as local assembly elections have remained the most peaceful in Ghana’s history. An emerging school of thought argues that it is time to elect local chief executives. Whilst the election of chief executives is not an entrenched constitutional provision (Parliament is considering a Legislative Instrument), the depoliticisation of the assemblies is entrenched in the Constitution. An entrenched clause requires two-thirds majority in a referendum to effect a change. The polarisation of views on depoliticising local assemblies is exemplified in the NPP government’s cancellation of a planned referendum in December 2019, which was meant to annul Article 248 and introduce party politics into local assemblies.

Local chief executives should be elected since the local government authorities must be accountable to the local communities rather than to the national government. Any election of the chief executives, however, should remain apolitical since the depoliticising of local governance is an indicator of the sustained political stability in Ghana’s Fourth Republic.

Whilst the behaviour of the Asantes and Ewes in national elections is uniquely informed by their historical identities and allegiances, it does not undermine political stability. Decentralisation will continue to provide localised spaces for diverse groups to assert their influence and identity. This will avert the possibility of dominant ethnic groups clamouring for control of state political apparatus.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. Much gratitude goes to my PhD supervisor at La Trobe University, Dr. Roland Burke, for his feedback on the initial draft.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

ORCID iD

Clement Sefa-Nyarko

Notes

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