Has Ghana’s democracy failed?

How much trouble is Ghana’s democracy in? On April 12, 2025, My JoyOnline reported that a former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Prof. Agyeman Badu Akosa, has stated that Ghana’s multi-party democratic system has failed to serve the interests of the wider population and has instead enriched only the political elite.

Speaking at the University of Education, Winneba, Public Lecture Series on April 11, Prof. Akosa said, “I believe sincerely, and I will say it here today, that multi-party democracy has done nothing for this country”.

He argued that beneath a veneer of democratic progress lies a deeply unequal system in which only a select few benefit: ‘Since 1992, the only beneficiaries of the system are the political class.

The professional class and the working class. The underclass all have been marginalised … Such a situation cannot lead to sustainable national development.

Democracy must deliver

For Prof. Akosa, democracy must deliver ‘sustainable national development’. But this, I suggest, is a fundamental misunderstanding of what democracy is and what it can achieve.

Democracy is no more and no less than a system for choosing a government which, on behalf of the people, makes decisions over the period of its term in office.

If voters decide the government has failed, the next elections offer the possibility of replacing it with a new one, which might succeed better than the last one. Free and fair elections, the core of democracy, do not imply, much less guarantee, a government able to deliver ‘sustainable national development’.

While Ghana is a democratic bulwark in a region rife with coups and instability, there is no doubt that the country has a host of long-term and deeply ingrained vulnerabilities, including egregious, high-level corruption, chronic mismanagement of public resources, soaring public debt and, overall, rather poor governance.

But are these problems due to democracy? I am not aware of any robust evidence that dictatorships are less corrupt, manage public affairs better, curtail public debt or, overall, are better at governance.

What dictatorships do not have is the oxygen of democracy, which fuels civil society and encourages the media to uncover governmental misdeeds and to try to hold the latter to account. No democracy equals no accountability.

Prof. Akosa claims that ‘beneath [the] veneer of democratic progress lies a deeply unequal system in which only a select few benefit’.

This is another misunderstanding of the characteristics of democracy. Indeed, Ghana is a rare phenomenon in Africa: a liberal democracy. 

Of 54 countries in Africa, Ghana is one of just a handful that can be so described. Others include: South Africa, Seychelles, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe. In other words, no more than one in 10 African countries are liberal democracies.

Civic benefits

What is a liberal democracy? Why is it important for Ghana to be one? And who benefits? A liberal democracy is a consolidated – that is, a well-established – democracy with a good record of citizens’ political rights and civil liberties.

A liberal democracy has two crucial dimensions: 1) governmental respect for and protection of individual and group liberties, and 2) an autonomous, robust, vibrant civil society. 

Ghana has relatively free and fair elections, robust political rights of expression, organisation and opposition, relatively easy access to mechanisms for expressions of dissent and articulation of societal and political interests, some popular influence on public policy and checks on power holders and their policies, via the free media, both traditional and social.

These are the benefits of a liberal democracy that Ghanaians enjoy.

While Ghana has become an increasingly unequal country — with a growing gap between the rich and poor — its liberal democracy enables citizens to enjoy the political and civil benefits noted above. Ghana’s exemplary democratic record — including, between 1992 and 2024, nine free and fair multi-party elections — is, however, criticised because the last 30 years have not produced ‘sustainable national development’.

I understand ‘sustainable national development’ in terms of sustained increase in citizens’ well-being, growing access to consumer goods and comprehensive educational, infrastructural and health systems.

How can ‘sustainable national development’ be delivered for Ghanaians?

Three issues need urgent and sustained attention: egregious, high-level corruption, severe environmental damage and destruction, notably galamsey, and improved human rights, including gender equality. 

None of these would be fixed in a dictatorship; it is only in a liberal democracy that such issues may be confronted and dealt with.

But liberal democracy on its own cannot fix the issues which have dogged Ghana since independence: partisanship, corruption and environmental destruction.

Partisanship means that what one government does in office will be wilfully undermined or destroyed when the opposition takes over; corruption is the cost not only of partisanship but also the perception that to achieve power is to be given the ability to line one’s pockets. 

Finally, partisanship and corruption fuel galamsey: both the NPP and NDC are said to benefit from galamsey, not least because it helps pay for the colossal costs that both parties incur when competing in national elections.

For Ghanaians to see their political system as a success, it is necessary to fix these problems.

Is Mr Mahama’s government up to the challenge? 

The writer is an Emeritus Professor of Politics, London Metropolitan University, UK.