Political Conflict and Elite Consensus in the Liberal State

Abstract

When Ghana’s current experiment at constitutional rule began in January 1993 against the background of a flawed presidential and an opposition boycott of parliamentary elections, there was pessimism that it would not travel beyond the 27 months that both the Second and Third Republics had done. By 2003, Ghana’s Fourth Republic has witnessed two other elections; the third resulting in a change of regime from one political party to another. A fourth election was in the offing with promises of a very competitive contest. How do we account for the relative success of an initially flawed transition; more so in the West African environment, where over the last one and half decades has been far better known for violent civil conflict than democratic development? This work takes a snap shot of the vicissitudes of the first decade of Ghana’s democratic transition and distills some lessons from that experience