Representative democracy in Ghana: Appraisal of selection methods of parliamentary candidates
Representative democracy is a form of government in which citizens are afforded the opportunity through elections to elect their representatives to make decisions on their behalf. This form of democracy is based on the principle of elected officials playing intermediary roles between decision-makers and the people.
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This relationship forms a fine covenant that enjoins these officials to represent the best interest of the people they represent.
Overall, representative democracy provides a balance between individual rights and collective decision-making, allowing citizens to have a say in how their government operates while ensuring efficiency and effectiveness in policy-making.
System of governance
Ghana’s current political system is wholly built on the democratic system of governance, with a representative democracy as its bedrock. Critical among the features of representative democracy is popular participation in the electoral process, where periodic elections are held and citizens get a platform to elect their representatives.
Representative democracy is thus the nexus of Ghana’s fourth republican democratic dispensation, which has had seamless transitions in about 30 years of uninterrupted democratic rule.
Since 1992, the country has successfully organised eight multi-party, peaceful, free and fair elections with different phases of improvement and consolidation of the electoral processes.
The Parliament of Ghana is the representation of representative democracy, where the generality of the population collectively elects 275 Members of Parliament (MPs) to represent the interests of their constituents. This institution has transitioned from an appointed Legislative Council, with exclusive advisory responsibilities in the mid-19th century under the colonial administration into its current form, where 275 members are elected by the citizens. The election of MPs is done concurrently with that of the President every four years, with political parties in full swing participation.
Political parties have irrevocably become an integral part of Ghana’s parliamentary democracy since the country transitioned into the Fourth Republic. By law, these parties have been created to be the gateway to Parliament, with the utmost responsibility to create a vehicle for the selection of Parliamentary Candidates to stand for ultimate election into the National Assembly (Parliament).
The 1992 Constitution, around which Ghana’s democratic rule is modeled, guarantees various political and civil rights, including the right to form political parties, the right to participate in electoral processes and in the governance of the country.
Accordingly, Article 55(1) of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana guarantees the right to form a political party, proclaiming that “The right to form political parties is hereby guaranteed. The Constitution further requires these political parties to engage in their internal organisation by their own guidelines, but this must be done within the principles of democracy and must therefore not contravene the Constitution of Ghana.
Article 55(3) of the Constitution and the Political Parties Act, 2000 (Act 574) provide for political parties to freely participate in shaping the political will of the people and to sponsor candidates for elections to any public office, including Parliamentary Candidates. In sponsoring candidates for elections at the parliamentary level, political parties are enjoined to be mindful of the qualification and eligibility criteria set out in article 94 of the 1992 Constitution.
Selecting Parliamentary Candidates
Candidate selection is the process by which a political party decides who is legally eligible for the political party to sponsor and designate on the ballot for general elections. It is broadly argued that the candidate selection process is one of the critical functions political parties perform in representative democracies, and this process, most likely, reflects and defines the character of a political party and its internal distribution of power.
It is worth noting that there is no uniform process for selecting candidates across democracies. While in some jurisdictions, the state heavily regulates the process, some others are left unregulated, with others with very limited regulations. For instance, in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and Ghana, the states do not regulate the selection process through legislation. However, the United States has an extensive regulatory regime for candidate selection while New Zealand has a flexible regulatory regime.
There are generically three methods for candidate selection across democracies. There is the all-inclusive system, the controlled inclusive system (delegate system) and the absolute exclusive system.
All-inclusive system
This is a system where the power to select candidates is practically decentralised, with the citizens having absolute control as to who is selected for the party to sponsor on its ticket.
It is largely the case in the United States, where candidate selection typically occurs by way of open primaries, in which all registered voters in a state vote directly for their preferred party candidate.
The open primaries system in the United States (US) is open to all registered voters, regardless of their party or independent affiliation. This system, by 2005, was adopted and employed in 20 states. Also, blanket primaries allow all registered voters to participate to enable voters to choose candidates across party lines for different offices. Note that the US Supreme Court struck down the blanket primary system in California in the case of California Democratic Party v. Jones, which was decided in June 2000.
Also, in 1971, in Iceland, several parties adopted the open primaries which were usually conducted in some of the electoral districts, and every citizen in these districts could participate.
The other form of an all-inclusive system is where all registered members of the political party are allowed to participate in selecting candidates for the parties to sponsor. The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), in 2001, adopted new regulations, allowing all registered members to participate in the selection of its parliamentary candidates in a reform that became known as “bulela ditswe” (open to all).
Also, in Ghana, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), in 2015, adopted a more inclusive method that made all registered members of the party at all branches eligible to vote to select Parliamentary Candidates. Following closely in 2019 was the All Progressives Congress (APC), one of Nigeria’s two major parties which piloted direct primaries (in which all registered members were able to vote) in 16 states. This method, although all-inclusive, is exclusively for eligible “party registered members.” This reflects the closed primaries system as practiced by some states in the U.S.
Just as the all-inclusive system has its advantages, principal of which is ensuring popular participation symbolic of democracy, it comes with its cutting negatives. This system can be unnecessarily cumbersome and most expensive to run.
The NDC of Ghana, post-2015 reforms, had to reverse to the delegate system. The objective of the NDC was to reduce vote-buying and for that matter reduce the cost of the election. In the end, although vote-buying (monetisation) was reduced to some extent, the overall cost of the elections to the party increased as per available information.
Also, candidates running in the primaries of the party recruited as many party members as potential voters and even recruited from other political parties, thereby, pushing the pursuit of quantity over quality to an extreme, and equally running the risk where the primaries were raided by external interests hostile to the party.
Delegate system
In between the two extreme selection processes (i.e., Absolute Inclusiveness and Absolute Exclusiveness) is the delegate system. This system, although participatory and not extremely exclusive, still has some limitations, with some restrictions to participation.
The writer is a senior aide to former President John Dramani Mahama