THE GHANAIAN ELECTIONS OF 1996: TOWARDS THE CONSOLIDATION OF DEMOCRACY?

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Abstract
Foreign donors expended over $23 million on micro-managing the December 1996 Ghanaian elections in an attempt to ensure that the process was technically ‘free and fair’. Owing partly to this expenditure and partly to the efficiency and impartiality of the Electoral Commission, the conduct of the elections was in fact remarkably technically correct. The losing opposition parties still complained, however, that President Rawlings and his party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), exploited the advantages of incumbency to a degree that rendered the result ‘free but not really fair’. The article argues that such very limited acceptance of election results, however justified or unjustified, is almost bound to obtain in economically underdeveloped African societies where, partly for structural and partly for cultural reason, politics continues to be very much a zero-sum game characterized by high levels of distrust. This in turn suggests limits to the likely consolidation of multi-party democracy. The article also analyses the reasons for the electoral victory of Rawlings and the NDC, arguing that it hinged on the rural population's trust in Rawlings' ability to provide rural development and political stability.

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