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2026 journal of african elections v25n2 eisa transparent democratic governance in africa

A Linguistic Analysis of Professor Naana Jane Opokuagyemang’s Vice-Presidential ‘Outdooring’ Speech of 2024

This study presents a linguistic analysis of the ‘outdooring’ (ceremonial public introduction) speech delivered by Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, Ghana’s first female vice-presidential candidate of a major political party. She was selected as the vice-presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress for the first time in 2020 and again in 2024. Drawing on political discourse analysis, the study examines her use of personal pronouns, modals, and rhetorical devices, including personification, simile, rhetorical questions, exaggeration, and innuendo. The focus is on the 2024 elections. The findings show that first-person and plural pronouns fostered inclusivity and commitment, and that rhetorical devices were used to enhance persuasion and subtly critique her political opponents. The analysis demonstrates how the speech built a leadership persona, reinforced collective solidarity, and affirmed party ideology. The findings also outline how this political language more broadly shaped public perceptions, mobilised citizens, and contributed to democratic outcomes. The paper advances the understanding of linguistic strategies in Ghanaian political communication and more generally the role of rhetoric in electoral contexts.

2026 journal of african elections v25n1 front cover eisa.pdf transparent democratic governance in africa

Egalitarian and Libertarian Political Financing Models: Lessons from Ghana and Switzerland for South Africa

Money is essential to politics. Unregulated money, however, can enable political corruption, which justifies the need for regulation. Public funding of political parties can promote equal political opportunities in heterogeneous societies. Hence, it is necessary to fund politics partly from public resources. A country adopts a political financing philosophy depending on its political environment. This article compares two main global approaches to funding political parties to identify best practices for South Africa’s nascent public funding regime. The first is Ghana’s egalitarian model, which emphasises strict regulation of both public and private funding of political parties. The second is Switzerland’s strategy, which relies on private funding with minimal state regulation. This article examines how these two models impact democratic values. Comparative doctrinal research methods underpin this analysis. It reviews Ghana’s and Switzerland’s legal and institutional financing systems to evaluate how effectively they uphold democracy. The paper shows that Ghana’s strict regulation promotes democratic equality by providing political opportunities in a diverse society, although challenges remain regarding effective regulation. Switzerland’s approach preserves the independence of political parties but risks fostering a plutocracy. Considering South Africa’s post-apartheid context, its emerging political financing system could include aspects of both libertarian and egalitarian models; it could adopt a hybrid approach using technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence to overcome transitional democracy challenges. The paper therefore recommends that South Africa should adopt a hybrid public financing model. The reason is that neither Ghana’s egalitarian system nor Switzerland’s libertarian regime sufficiently address the democratic challenges related to political financing.

2023 journal of african elections v22n2 eisa transparent democratic governance in africa

Electoral Manipulation in the Grey Zone: Evidence from Ghana’s Parliamentary Elections in 2008 and 2012

Electoral manipulation undermines the function of elections as a mechanism of representation and accountability, and erodes public trust in government institutions; however, our theoretical understanding of its causes is still limited. Research has focused on the blunter forms of electoral manipulation. Less attention has been given to the more subtle forms, although these are more common. This paper investigates one type of subtle electoral manipulation: miscounting, meaning election officers who selectively reject ballots during the counting. It suggests that miscounting (one of the ways in which political candidates can rig elections) is characterised by low risks and high direct costs. On one hand, it is almost invisible, embedded in the sociocultural norms and practices surrounding elections in many African countries. On the other, it is expensive, requiring large amounts of patronage to co-opt election officers. This makes miscounting attractive only to incumbents who fear electoral defeat and have deep clientelist networks. The paper tests this argument against data from the 2008 and 2012 parliamentary elections in Ghana. It shows that the number of ballot rejections is positively correlated with the number of years the party of the incumbent MP has held the constituency seat, but negatively correlated when this variable is interacted with the win-margin in the last parliamentary election. This pattern is consistent with the model, supporting the argument that the effect of electoral uncertainty on miscounting is conditional. When MPs do not have resources at their disposal, they choose other types of electoral manipulation or opt out of electoral rigging altogether.

2023 journal of african elections v22n2 eisa transparent democratic governance in africa

Ensuring Peaceful Elections in Ghana: The Role of Civil Society Organisations in the 2020 Elections

This paper explores the role civil society organisations (CSOs) play in promoting peaceful elections in Ghana. Preventing electoral violence is a key factor in the support of functioning democratic societies, and the role of CSOs in promoting peaceful elections continues to grow with each electoral contest. This paper reviews secondary sources to interrogate the questions about the nature, interventions, impact, and challenges of CSOs in Ghana before, during and after general elections. Specifically, the paper examines the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections using the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) and the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) as case studies. Overall, the recommendations in this study suggest CSOs must build synergies to increase collaboration in order to promote peaceful elections and political transitions. In addition, to strengthen their election observation, civic/voter education, peace promotion and violence monitoring roles through sustainable funding, CSOs in Ghana must review their funding strategies to include donations from non-partisan organisations and individuals. Furthermore, to maintain the integrity of CSOs in Ghana, they must develop internally-built transparency and accountability mechanisms such as legal structures to govern their operations.

2023 journal of african elections v22n2 eisa transparent democratic governance in africa

Political Vigilante Violence in Ghana: Its Human Rights Implications

The primary goal of this paper is to consider the incontrovertible links between political vigilante violence and human rights violations in Ghana. In particular, it pays attention to the ways in which politically-related violence thrives. To achieve this, the paper will be guided by the following research objectives: First, to explore the nature of political vigilantism in Ghana’s Fourth Republic. Second, to analyse the human rights issues in political vigilantism within this period. Drawing mainly on experiences of general elections of Ghana’s Fourth Republic, the paper purposes to interrogate the scale of political vigilante violence in Ghana. It contends that there is an intricate link between political vigilante violence and human rights. The paper relies on frustration-aggression theory to consider the ways in which the desire to gain political power leads to rivalry and eventually to violence.

journal of african elections vol21 number 1 transparent democratic governance in africa

Election Petition and the Future of Electoral Reforms in Ghana

The results of Ghana’s 2012 and 2020 elections were challenged in the nation’s
Supreme Court. Even though the court processes in both cases did not alter
the election results, they nevertheless exposed monumental flaws in the
electoral processes. The flaws in the 2012 electoral processes were exposed at
the Supreme Court and featured in the final judgment of the court in a manner
that allowed the Electoral Commission to initiate moves towards electoral
reforms. However, the challenges of the 2020 elections, though exposed at the
courts, were never featured in the final judgment of the Supreme Court. This
paper discusses the implications of the 2020 election petition for the future of
electoral reforms in Ghana. It argues that the rigid application of the letter
of the law by the Supreme Court and the relegation to the background of the
thorny issues of electoral challenges in the 2020 elections, would render the
quest for further electoral reforms difficult. This would then make the future
of any attempt to fine-tune the electoral processes quite bleak.

journal of african elections vol20 number 1 transparent democratic governance in africa

Exploring the Socio-Demographic Distribution of Independent Swing Voters in Ghana

Ghana has become a two-party state by default, with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) emerging as the only political parties with sufficient national appeal to win elections and form governments. Through the power of the ballot, each of them has had the chance of being in government as well […]

journal of african elections vol20 number 2 transparent democratic governance in africa

The History of Elections in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda: What We Can Learn from These “National Exercises”

A large literature has described the years after independence from colonial
rule as a period of ‘departicipation’. Africa’s new rulers – whether driven by
personal venality or a sincere commitment to nation-building – swiftly gave
up on elections, or at best held elections that, by denying choice, left violence
as the central dynamic of African politics. This article draws on the cases
of Kenya, Ghana and Uganda in the late 1960s to argue that the emphasis
often placed on the ‘speed and ease’ of this process has been overstated.
Instead, Africa’s politicians and civil servants valued elections as a means to
educate and discipline the public, even as they feared their possible outcomes.
Building on a literature that focuses on the individual experience of elections
rather than the presence or absence of parties, we argue that the rhetoric of
politicians and civil servants shows that they saw elections as ‘exercises’ – a
revealing term – that would train and test their new citizens. Yet this is not
the whole story: voters understood their participation in their own terms
and played a role in how early experiments with elections played out. The
political closures of these years were real, but their course was unplanned
and contingent, shaped partly by popular involvement. These points are not
only of historical value, but also provide important insights into the extent to
which contemporary elections are instruments of elite power or the drivers
of democratisation.

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