Last Wednesday, my column discussed political detachment in Ghana — specifically, the decline in the share of Ghanaians who say they "feel close to a particular political party."
I argued that detachment carries both an upside and a downside.
One of the downsides, I suggested, is that detachment does not make partisanship disappear; it simply reduces the number of people who carry it.
The more I look at Ghana's democracy, the less it feels like a single democracy and the more like two very different views of the same one.
If you probe partisan Ghanaians about how our democracy is doing, two very different answers are likely to emerge, generally reflecting whether their preferred political party sits in government or in opposition.
This will not surprise many, but we can now measure it with empirical data thanks to Afrobarometer's 25 years of surveying Ghanaians on these questions.
In this piece, I examine how partisans of the two main political parties – the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP)- have answered certain key questions about the country’s democracy.
Partisan gaps
I begin by first comparing two presidencies on six key items. In the most recent Afrobarometer survey (2024), during the Akufo-Addo presidency, below is the margin of how NPP partisans felt (higher) than their NDC counterparts – support for elections (+3.3); free to join any organization (+7.7); support for democracy (+16.0); freedom to say what you think (+19.3); satisfaction with democracy (+22.4); and Ghana is a full democracy (+22.4).
Now contrast it with Afrobarometer Round 6 (2014) during the first presidency of John Mahama and how NDC partisans felt (higher) than their NPP counterparts on the same six key items - freedom to join any organisation (+1.7); freedom to say what you think (+2.2); Ghana is a full democracy (+10.2); and satisfaction with democracy (+22.8).
There were two anomalies – support for elections among NDC partisans was lower (-4.3) and support for democracy (-3.8) compared to their NPP counterparts, although their party was in power.
Second, on overall satisfaction with democracy across ten rounds of the survey, NDC partisans have expressed, on average, higher satisfaction (74 per cent) when their party was in power and lower satisfaction (59 per cent) when in opposition.
When in power, NPP partisans have expressed higher satisfaction (80 per cent) and lower satisfaction (54 per cent) in opposition.
Third, in 2014, by a margin of 32 per cent to 15 per cent, more NPP partisans felt that the President ignores Parliament “often/always” than NDC partisans did.
In the survey year (2017), at the start of the Akufo-Addo presidency, by a margin of 21 per cent to 13 per cent, more NDC partisans felt the president ignored Parliament “often/always” than NPP partisans did.
In the survey year (2024) at the end of the same presidency, the margin was 55 per cent (NDC) to 32 per cent (NPP). Essentially, by the end of the Akufo-Addo presidency, the percentage of NDC partisans who felt the president ignores parliament “often/always” grew significantly by as many as thirty-four percentage points.
These patterns deserve more attention than they get in our public conversation, because they suggest something uncomfortable: our conversations about the state of our democracy are partly two separate conversations, happening past each other. What does all this mean, then, for Ghana’s democracy?
Ghana’s Democracy?
Ghana has experienced 33 years of stable democratic practice.
Over the period, the country has held nine elections and survived four peaceful transfers of power — a genuine achievement whose importance to democratic stability we cannot understate.
But the Afrobarometer data forces us to confront a more difficult question – why do partisans, in general, feel so differently about their lived experiences under Ghana’s democratic dispensation?
And, more importantly, should the emerging patterns give us cause for concern?
I have no answers to the first question. Perhaps, there is a certain security that comes with one's preferred political party being in power.
Or perhaps how our two political parties govern using our democratic institutions truly gives partisans a different feeling when their party is in power compared to when their party is in opposition.
Or is it all just perception, simply coloured by partisan attachment — that democracy may be going well, but for the mere fact that my party is not in power, I must, as a partisan, express negative feelings and attitudes?
Whichever way we answer the first question, we must be concerned that, regardless of which party holds power, its identifiers consistently feel more positively about Ghana’s democracy.
That is what makes it worrying: it means, in my opinion, neither side's vigilance in opposition can be trusted to hold steady once their own party is in office.
I often say that Ghanaians have made their peace with democracy given the overall support (73 per cent) in the 2024 Afrobarometer survey.
But we cannot remain complacent.
To deepen our democracy, we need greater convergence among our partisans.
The writer is the Project Director, Democracy Project.
