Ormer President Akufo-Addo bemoaned the tone of public discourse in Ghana, observing with worry what he perceived as our inability to handle dissent.
In one of his Independence Day speeches, he drew attention to the fact that "dissent is never a threat to any subject under discussion." It was, in my opinion, a call to improve our public discourse and check our political temperaments.
Let’s face it – this is not a call for agreement on every single issue that confronts the nation.
Even in our small circles of friendship, family, church, local community, etc. there is disagreement.
How much more across an entire geographic space called a country with people of differing socio-economic and political backgrounds in a multiparty democracy.
But there is no denying that some of the rhetoric used when dissenting during public discourse on matters affecting the nation is deplorable.
In my opinion, the era of social media appears to have worsened this plight.
I am tempted to blame this on partisan politics and the tendency for national issues to quickly degenerate into a fight between sympathisers of our two main political parties – the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), leading me to decry that we have become too partisan.
I, however, accept that in a multiparty democracy where people develop attachments to different political parties, there will be a certain amount of partisanship.
There is, however, an intriguing paradox I picked up from the Afrobarometer survey.
The paradox – decreasing number of partisans
In Afrobarometer Round 1 (1999), the survey asked, “do you feel close to any particular political party?” In response, 67 per cent answered “yes” and 33 per cent answered “no.”
My analysis excludes those who refused to answer the question. In essence, in 1999, partisans outnumbered nonpartisans by a ratio of 2:1.
This ratio generally remained the same over the next five rounds (2002, 2005, 2008, 2012, 2014) of the survey.
In Round 7(2017), the pattern began to change.
The percentage of Ghanaians describing themselves as partisan (feeling close to a political party) dropped to 59 per cent, a decrease of eight percentage points compared to 1999.
At the same time, those describing themselves as nonpartisan increased by nine percentage points to 41 per cent compared to 1999.
This pattern continued over the next three rounds (2019, 2022, and 2024), culminating in the percentage of nonpartisans (53 per cent) surpassing the number of partisans (46 per cent) for the first time in 2024.
In summary, the number of partisans has decreased significantly between 1999 and 2024.
The other side of the paradox – increasing political intolerance?
In Afrobarometer Round 9 (2022) Ghanaians were asked “For each of the following types of people, please tell me whether you would like having people from this group as neighbours, dislike it, or not care: People who support a different political party?”
I use this as a proxy measure for political tolerance.
Overall, only six per cent answered “strongly dislike/somewhat dislike.” What I find troubling is that, when the question was asked in Round 10 (2024), this doubled to 12 per cent, prompting me to ask, “what is happening to our political temperaments?”
The demographic breakdown, comparing Round 9 (2022) to Round 10 (2024), show that almost all groups experienced an increase in their political intolerance level, some more than others. Here are the notable ones with double digit increases – a) post-secondary, but not university (+12 per cent); b) no formal schooling (+11 per cent); and c) 46-55 year olds (+10 per cent).
What about partisans of our two main political parties? In 2022, more NPP partisans (Nine per cent) than NDC partisans (Four per cent) answered “strongly dislike/somewhat dislike.”
In 2024, the picture changed, with more NDC partisans (13 per cent) than NPP partisans (10 per cent) answering “strongly dislike/somewhat dislike.”
Yes, granted in 2022 majority (60 per cent) and 2024 (62 per cent) answered “somewhat like/strongly like,” it is the sharp increase in the percentage answering “somewhat dislike/strongly dislike” that leads me to ask whether the Ghanaian political temperament is beginning to show signs of increasing intolerance?
Making sense of the paradox
If the number of partisans is on the decline, why do we observe these “clashes” in public discourse whose fault lines appear to be political – NDC vs NPP?
Perhaps they may be outnumbered in terms of their share of the political landscape but not their active engagement in public spaces debating issues of national interest through partisan lenses.
In relation to the above point, besides their active engagement, partisan sentiments may have also deepened.
So, it may not be a question of size, but rather one of depth of attachment where partisans are concerned.
Finally, we cannot overlook the political intolerance part of the equation. It should be worrying that overall, and across all demographic groups, we are seeing an increase in the percentage who would not like to have a neighbour who supports a different political party.
The writer is the Project Director, Democracy Project
