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One Election, Two Victories: Ghana’s 2016 General Elections Revisited

Dr. Bawah, Alhassan Salifu
Senior Lecturer/Head of Department
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  asbawah@uew.edu.gh
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Authors
Braimak, A.I. & Bawah, A.S.
Publication Year
2019
Article Title
One Election, Two Victories: Ghana’s 2016 General Elections Revisited
Journal
Social Sciences Publishing Group
Volume
8
Issue Number
5
Page Numbers
234-244
ISSN
ISSN: 2326-9863 (Print); ISSN: 2326-988X (Online)
Abstract

This article examines election-related violence that characterizes some electoral processes across Africa. The

study thematically focused on two dominant political parties in Ghana, thus the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National

Democratic Congress (NDC) in respect of the December 2016 Presidential election. These two political parties have alternated

executive power in Ghana since the birth of the Fourth Republic in January 1993, with Ghana having failed to maintain the

status quo immediately after independence from British colonial rule. The claims and counterclaims of victory immediately

after polls closed in the December, 2016 Presidential and Parliamentary elections, brought Ghana to the brink of election

violence. Both parties’ counter-claimed victory, purportedly based on ‘results’ obtained from their polling agents posted across

the various polling stations in all the 275 constituencies. The Electoral Commission (EC), which supervised the general

election was surprisingly mute in declaring the winner of the 2016 Presidential election in the midst of these controversies.

This paper argues that the vacuum created by the EC per its delay in the declaration of certified Presidential election results

after polls had closed, was a blot on Ghana’s status as the beacon of democracy and peace in Africa.

© 2019 University of Education, Winneba