The Supreme Court yesterday made a decision that will change how Ghana chooses its leaders long before ballots are cast on election day.
By a 5-2 majority, a seven-member panel presided over by Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie has declared the delegate-based electoral college systems used by political parties to elect presidential and parliamentary candidates unconstitutional.
The court held that limiting the vote to a narrow group of executives, officeholders and delegates, while excluding the broader membership, breaches Article 55(5) of the 1992 Constitution.
It further held that the Electoral Commission (EC) has a statutory duty to ensure that the internal activities of political parties conform with that provision.
This is a landmark judgment. It strikes at the heart of how power is distributed inside our political parties.
For years, the two major parties and several smaller ones have used an electoral college system.
A few thousand delegates — constituency executives, regional executives, national executives, Members of Parliament, former appointees — gather to elect flagbearers and parliamentary candidates. Millions of card-bearing members watch from the sidelines.
The Supreme Court says that model is no longer tenable. Article 55(5) of the Constitution requires that the internal organisation of a political party shall conform to democratic principles. Confining choice to a small college does not.
The court also put responsibility on the EC. The EC can no longer be a bystander to party primaries. It has a duty to ensure that party processes align with the Constitution.
Political parties are the gatekeepers of public office. If the gate is narrow, democracy is narrow. When 200,000 delegates decide who becomes the presidential candidate for a party with two million members, we create a system of incentives that distorts politics. Money, patronage, and access become more important than ideas. Delegates become “kingmakers.”
The ordinary member becomes a spectator.
The Court’s decision pushes parties toward “one member, one vote.” That means every card-bearing member in every constituency gets to vote in parliamentary primaries. Every member nationwide gets to vote in presidential primaries.
That has three immediate effects. First, it broadens participation.
Politics will no longer be the exclusive business of a few thousand people.
Teachers, traders, nurses and drivers who are party members will have a direct say.
Second, it reduces the cost of politics. It is harder and more expensive to buy two million votes than to influence 3,000 delegates.
The era of “cash and goodies” at delegate conferences should, in principle, decline. Third, it changes accountability.
A candidate who wins through a mass vote owes something to the mass, not just to the executives who delivered them.
The ruling is clear.
The implementation will be hard. Running a nationwide primary for a party with millions of members is a massive undertaking.
It requires a credible voters’ register, polling stations in every constituency, trained officials, and security.
The EC will have to supervise this. Parties will have to fund it.
Elections cost money.
If parties must organise primaries across 276 constituencies for parliamentary candidates, and nationwide for flagbearers, they will need more transparent financing. State support for political parties may have to be revisited.
The Court’s second holding is just as significant: the EC has a statutory duty to ensure party internals conform to Article 55(5). For too long, the EC has said: “Party matters are internal matters.”
No more.
The Commission must now develop guidelines for party primaries, monitor compliance, and certify that processes are democratic.
That is a heavy mandate. Parliament and the government must resource the EC to do it. Without that, the judgment will be honoured in breach.
This judgment is ultimately about the ordinary party member in Bawku, Cape Coast, or Accra Central. For years, they paid dues, pasted posters, and campaigned, but had no say in who represented them.
Now they will. That is what Article 55(5) envisioned: political parties as democratic institutions, not private clubs.
Our democracy does not begin and end on December 7.
It begins with how parties choose who stands for election.
By striking down the electoral college system, the Supreme Court has pulled democracy inside the party walls.
But it is the right direction.
A system where a few decide for the many was never sustainable.
A system where the many decide will be more competitive, more representative, and ultimately more legitimate.
The Supreme Court has given our democracy a reset.
Now parties, the EC, and citizens must do the hard work of making “one member, one vote” real.
The delegates’ era has ended.
The members’ era begins.
