Ghana’s 2016 general elections: Accounting for the monumental defeat of the national democratic congress.

Abstract

Ghana is now seen as a thriving African democracy after having gone through seven presidential and parliamentary elections, resulting in three overturns of political power in 2001, 2009 and 2017. The 2016 election was another crossroad for Ghana’s maturing democracy. In this election, the incumbent National Democratic Congress (NDC) lost to the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). The margin of defeat suffered by the ruling NDC was puzzling and unprecedented. Using voter behaviour as a theoretical taxonomy, this paper attempts to explain the monumental defeat of the NDC in the 2016 general election. It poses the question: what factors led to this defeat and why was there such a monumental difference of over one million votes? The paper argues that firstly, the defeat was due to regime fatigue anchored in the two-term regime cycle of change and voting based on party identification. Secondly, the defeat was monumental because of poor economic performance; corruption on the part of some government ministers and attempts to shield them; unpopular last minute decisions; the gross display of arrogance by some ministers of state and party officials; a more appealing campaign message of hope from the main opposition party; poor branding and communication of NDC’s campaign promises and ideas; abuse of incumbency; voter apathy on the part of ruling party supporters and the general call for change across the world. The study concludes by offering some useful recommendations.