The 2008 Political Parties’ Code of Conduct in Ghana: A Toothless Bulldog?

Abstract

The idea of drafting a Code of Conduct for political parties in the run up to the December 2008 General Elections by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA-Ghana) under the auspices of the Ghana Political Parties’ Programme (GPPP), was hailed by many Ghanaians and political analysts as a step in the right direction. Indeed, the establishment and inauguration of enforcement bodies under the Code was seen as a useful initiative by The IEA to give the Code “teeth to bite”. This study however reveals that the establishment and inauguration of the enforcement bodies under the Code did not make it unique after all. In more practical terms, the study revealed that the 2008 Political Parties’ Code of Conduct is not in anyway different from the ones drafted in 2000 and 2004. It is just as ineffective as a toothless bull dog that can only bark but cannot bite. The whole process of drafting the Code can therefore be described as one of the numerous Ghanaian efforts at looking for solutions to problems through workshops, retreats and symposia whose outcomes and resolutions are never implemented but left on shelves to gather dust