Historically, vote casts during elections in Ghana were based on ideological values and the need for development and self–reliance rather than ethnic identity and religious sentiment. The first-ever General Elections in Ghana, then Gold Coast, in February 1951 which saw the election of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah as Prime Minister of the Gold Coast was purely ideological.

The main goal of Ghanaians then was to gain independence and the two major factions of ideologies leading this course were the UGCC’s ideology of “progressive self-governance” while its opponent the CPP took a radical stance for “self-governance now” which ultimately won the CPP the election despite its leader being in jail at the time.

Subsequently, elections in 1960, 1969, and 1979, which resulted in victories for Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of the Convention People Party (CPP), Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia of the Progress Party (PP), and Dr. Hilla Limann of the People’s National Party (PNP) respectively, were all based on ideological inclinations and the need for political change.

However, Ghana’s political sphere has shifted to accommodate ethnic and religious sentiments as factors that influence which candidature gets the vote of citizens. The Fourth Republic has been filled with ethnic and religious sentiment toward voting perhaps, due to the belief that the region most represented gets the most share in development.

“Northern region, you have produced a person that we can be proud of, a genuine son of the region, a genuine son of Ghana. He tells the truth. When he speaks, don’t you trust him? Yes, you can trust him. He told Ghana that even though dumsor was not caused by him, he would fix it. And what did he do? He fixed it”.
Fiifi Fiavi Kwetey

As a result, the two major political parties have their affiliate ethnic groups which hold as their vote banks during elections. While the NPP is largely favored by the Ashanti/Akan ethnic group the NDC enjoys favor with the Ewe and the Northern ethnic groups.

To reduce the practice of voting based on religious and ethnic sentiments, the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has over the years educated Ghanaians on the need to desist from the practice and how disadvantageous the practice is to the country’s development and burgeoning democracy. However, the attitudes of electorates can only be interpreted as the education of the NCCE has been ineffective over the years.

“We [the NCCE] are looking at issues surrounding religious tolerance which has never been an issue for us for elections in the past but because of the current circumstance is an issue. We want people to understand that when politicians come to you and say vote for me because I have the same religion as you, they don’t have your interest at heart… We are asking people to ignore those who come and request votes on the basis of ethnic affiliation”.
Kathleen Addy

The Actual Menace

The practice of voting based on religious and ethnic affiliations has created a trend of distrust of governments viewed by ethnic groups as not theirs and a sense of insensitivity to the plight of people a government does not enjoy favors from.

“For you in Kumasi, even if we construct roads tarred with gold, you will still say we’ve done nothing”

John Dramani Mahama

The general narrative in the public sphere is that a President from a certain tribe or ethnic group is likely to develop the region of his origin to the neglect of every other region. This phenomenon results in nepotism and favoritism which does not encourage development.

“Ato Codjoe who was the MP for the area. I made him a deputy minister so that through that he would initiate development projects in the area but it didn’t last. During the subsequent election, he was voted out and these all accounted for my neglect for the area,”
H.E Akufo-Addo

Now and then, a certain portion of Ghanaians have to wait for their share of the national cake when the two major political parties take turns in office. The people of the Volta region and the North depend on the NDC for their development while the Ashanti rely on the NPP for theirs.

The good news however is that Ghana’s electoral system has been blessed with some regions known as the swing regions in electoral practice – Central, Western, Greater Accra, and Brong Ahafo regions, which serve as a beacon of hope that voting based on partisan, religious and ethnic sentiments could be a thing of the past in Ghana’s electoral practice someday.