Civil Society Participation in Ghana's Election. The Case of the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) in Ghana's 2000 and 2008 General Elections

Abstract

Election observation has become the new phenomenon for assessing the quality of elections in nascent democracies. There are two main types of election observation; international and domestic election observation. Since 2000 the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO), a con of civil society has watched Ghana’s elections. The study therefore assessed the role the CODEO played in Ghana’s electoral process in order to ascertain whether CODOE activities led to the increase in civil society participation in Ghana’s elections. In the final analysis, the study noted that CODEO to a great extent had increased the participation of civil society groups in Ghana’s elections. The activity of CODEO has improved the electoral process especially in the observation of the pre-election, election and post-election period. The use of the Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) also helped authenticate the results of the Electoral Commission and is one element which must be encouraged in the electoral process The study thus employed the use of formal interviews and review of documented sources to gather information to answer the questions posed by the study. The qualitative content analysis method was employed in analyzing the data collected