The 2020 General Elections in Ghana: An Analysis of the Issues, Voting Pattern and Impact

Abstract: Ghanaians went to the polls on 7 December 2020, for the 8th successive time since the return to constitutional rule in 1993, to elect a President and 275 Members of Parliament. The incumbent President Nana Akufo-Addo defeated former President John Mahama and the National Democratic Congress, to secure a second term mandate, on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party. In the Parliamentary race, both parties secured 137 seats each with one independent seat. The outcome of the elections, therefore, did not follow the same trend as those held in Ghana in 1992/93, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 in which a victorious party won the presidential and secured majority of the seats in parliament. The outcome of the polls also saw a change in the country's governance system where for the first time, the Speaker of Parliament came from the opposition party. Also, National Democratic Congress, for the first time, officially rejected the outcome of the polls and mounted a challenge in the country’s apex court. The author relied on the qualitative method to examine the process of the conduct of the 2020 general elections, the issues, outcome and analysis of the voting pattern and its implications for electoral politics in Ghana. The paper revealed that the Ghanaian electorate are rational actors who reward hard work and punish mediocracy and not based on destructive ethnic voting. Also, it reiterates the need for vigilance at both the polling stations and collation centres to ensure undisputed elections and to consolidate the gains in Ghana’s electoral politics.