My ears perked up when, on the Good Morning Ghana show on Metro TV, the renowned Ghanaian journalist and pan-Africanist Kwesi Pratt Jnr recently made the assertion that he would be in favour of military rule in Ghana under certain circumstances. Pratt has always been controversial, and on that reckoning, one can take his comment in one’s stride. But the comment resists brushing aside given the journalists credentials as a veteran in Ghana’s struggle for democracy and extrication from military rule. In the light of that history, his remarks were nothing short of staggering. Was I hearing correctly?
His long-time friend and colleague Kwaku Baako Jnr, equally renowned for championing free speech and helping build Ghana’s democratic dispensation, seemed as surprised as I was. He could not agree with Pratt that anything could justify the undermining of the dispensation they had both committed their youthful days to and sacrificed so much for.
Putting aside Pratt’s personal history, his statement seems more pertinent in the face of the democratic backsliding we are witnessing across the West-African subregion in recent years, but also far beyond. Across the world, talk of the decline of democracy is heavy, with good reason. The rise of populist, authoritarian, and far-right politics poses paradigmatic challenges. So does a spate of recent attempts to control, manipulate, or otherwise undermine election results in various parts of the world.
Captain Ibrahim Traoré with entourage. Source: 3FM 92.7
When Pratt made his remarks, he prefaced them with the observation that Captain Ibrahim Traoré, military ruler of Burkina Faso, received enthusiastic applause from the crowd at the swearing-in of Ghana’s new president earlier this month.
By roaring so loudly for the military leader, Pratt believes Ghanaians “were endorsing a struggle against neocolonialism, a struggle for African people to take hold of their resources and exploit them for their own benefit, for a regime that was saying no to foreign military bases on African soil.” Is he on to something?
When pressed on what circumstances would justify a military coup for him, Mr. Pratt cited a scenario where an incumbent government refuses to hand over power, and when “the avenues for the legitimate expressions of the people are closed.” Despite Ghana’s gains in entrenching democratic culture and appetite, Pratt is worried that “we could have a Bokassa in Ghana at any time.” He was referring, of course, to Jean-Bédel Bokassa, who came to power in the Central African Republic through a military coup in 1966, ruled for thirteen years, and declared himself Emperor of Central Africa.
On the whole, I am sympathetic to Kweku Baako’s objections. Ghana has probably come too far for a Bokassa-type figure to emerge, even though the country is not necessarily immune and Pratt’s argument from history is hard to suppress. And recent surveys indicate an overwhelming preference for democratic rule across Africa. According to Afrobarometer’s flagship report for 2024, African Insights, 66% of Africans say they prefer democratic rule to any other form of government.[1] So why all the talk of democratic decline and backsliding?
Citizens and Spectators: The Case of Ghana
Kwesi Pratt Jnr. Source: Ghanaweb.com
In 2015, an Afrobarometer survey found only 20% of Ghanaians very satisfied, and 35% fairly satisfied, with their country’s democracy. In 2024, Afrobarometer reported a 23-point drop in overall satisfaction with democracy. The country also became one of only four countries in sub-Saharan Africa to lose the status of a liberal democracy. It has now been reclassified as an electoral democracy.
The study also found an eighteen-point rise in Ghanaians’ openness to military rule in the last decade. 40% of Ghanaians agreed that “armed forces can intervene when leaders abuse power,” according to Afrobarometer’s latest flagship report. Calls for a return to military rule have left the fringes into mainstream popular discourse, and the Speaker of Parliament has recently seen fit to address this openly. Is this why the crowd at the Independence Square cheered Captain Traoré? Did he represent to them the solution they are thirsting for?
A number of factors have been cited as contributing to the growing dissatisfaction with democracy in recent years. They include high levels of perceived corruption, the passage of an anti-LGBTQ+ bill, political tampering with the electoral commission that undermines its autonomy, incidences of the curtailment of press freedom since 2021, and political apathy especially among the youth.
Political apathy is the name given to a set of behaviours including voter disengagement, cynicism, and disconnection. Apathy has taken some of the blame for low voter turnout in elections all over the world, including in the United Kingdom, across Europe, South Africa, and the United States, where the number of eligible voters who abstained (90 million) exceeded the number that voted for either of the two main candidates. It is being argued by some analysts that the low turnout ensuing in the 2024 elections signals growing apathy among Ghanaians for the democratic order.
Consider this statement from a feature article in the Ghanaian Times: “The recent general elections held on the 7th of December, 2024, recorded one of the highest voter apathy in recent polls, according to records.” A Bloomberg article published a mere day after the elections claims precisely this. It cites an email correspondence with Bright Simons, in which he states, “a dip in turnout often signals serious disenchantment, which afflicts the base of the incumbent more than that of the opposition.” ChannelOne TV similarly blamed “apathetic voters” for the lowest voter turnout since 2016. Voter apathy also dominates analyses from GTV Ghana, as well as opinion pieces on GhanaWeb, Modern Ghana, and other platforms.
Sadly, a notable feature of these claims is that they are almost never based on any real analysis of the situation among Ghanaian voters. Rather, the common theme is the conflation of non-voting with apathy. The Ghanaian Times piece cited above reflects this. So does this report on ChannelOne TV stating, “every election season sees a segment of the population disengaged, uninterested, and unwilling to vote, a phenomenon commonly referred to as voter apathy.”
Where some analysis is offered, it often reflects this lumping, as with this article in the World Politics review, which claims “the lack of citizen engagement with the electoral process reflects popular dissatisfaction with what is perceived as the unpaid dividends of democracy.” Similarly, another report rightly points to disillusionment with the political class that the current constitution has helped to breed.
What they describe is a form of state capture effected by the two dominant parties, “a rote trade-off of power among a small group of political elites.” They say, “A small group of elites dominate Ghanaian politics, and they are perceived by many Ghanaians to be using the state to enrich their networks rather than to serve the public interest.” And “Rawlings’s decision to consolidate executive power and limit the extent to which the judiciary, in particular, can act as a check to the executive is partially responsible for this situation.” They read the 60.9% turnout at the recent presidential election as a sign of disillusionment with this system, even if their analysis is more implicit than direct.
But as relevant as these observations are, do they really point to a general disillusionment with democracy among Ghanaians? Are people, especially young people, refraining from voting because they no longer care? Where should a line be drawn, if it ought to be, between disappointment, distrust on the one hand, and downright disinterest on the other? If such a line has meaningful existence, then the label of voter apathy may be a misnomer of premature diagnosis.
I am not convinced that non-voting Ghanaians, and those answering the surveys we have read, are apathetic towards their electoral and larger democratic system. If apathy means that they do not care, or even that they care significantly less, I am not convinced. I simply do not think the evidence exists to support this conclusion. Are they disappointed and disillusioned? Yes. Frustrated? Undoubtedly. Mistrusting? Indeed. Unenthusiastic? Probably. But apathetic? Far deeper analysis, I think, and more precise survey questions are needed to establish that.
In fact, going by the myriad repots of apathy themselves, one is often met with quotes from ordinary Ghanaians, or direct man-on-the-street interviews, in which Ghanaians explain their non-voting behaviours, and I have never yet heard one of them attribute their electoral abstinence to not caring.
But why focus on the niceties of semantic distinctions? If Ghanaians are sufficiently disillusioned and frustrated with the dividends of democracy to register such concerning levels of openness to military rule, isn’t it necessary to address the issue, even if under a less than precise term? This reasoning is not terrible. I even have some sympathy with it. Still, the difference may prove more than semantic. Such is the nature of human populations, that differences between theory and practice, appearance and reality, can be impactful.
There may be little difference between a person who is apathetic to a situation and one who withdraws as a means of emotional and psychological self-regulation (and even of this I am not convinced), but an apathetic population and a frustrated one, are fundamentally two different animals.
Even though the label of apathy has global and almost universal purchase in these discussions, there is a growing awareness of its inadequacy to account for shifting dynamics in civil life. In Europe, for instance, a 2014 study took issue with the characterisation. It found that far from being disaffected and apathetic, youth in European countries were eager to participate, albeit on different terms, and their frustrations are not so different from their Ghanaian counterparts. The authors highlight “a mismatch between young people’s hopes for democracy and the way these are being addressed (or not) by politicians.”[2] Far from an expression of apathy, low voter turnout, they insist, “is testimony to the frustration and betrayal felt by some young people.”[3]
Also consider that on some analyses, apathy is not the cause of voter non-participation, but rather, the result. That is to say, if we do not stop using apathy as an easy moniker for what are legitimate problems, we run the risk that it nurtures an analytical laziness that leads inexorably to a much worse condition, apathy itself. We essentially proclaim a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will allow the cliché.
The Paradox of Disengagement
As the picture being painted begins to crystallise, it becomes evident how deepening analysis of the issue beats a path from the political to the philosophical. The “Myth of Youth Apathy” study contains an insightful and immediately relatable observation: “While young citizens are the most likely to criticise the state of their political systems and apparently disengage from it, they are also the most likely – to a significant degree – to hold ambitious and idealist notions about what democratic participation should be like and about how involved they actually say they want to be.”[4]
Indeed, they further warn that “anyone who thinks that the low turnout of young voters is due to young people being too lazy to take five minutes to go to the polling station or being too selfish to do so is grossly mischaracterizing the immense political appetite of European youth.”[5] On this basis, they pose a poignant question: how can we leverage this “paradoxical appetite for involvement?”[6]
If they are correct, then seeing the current situation as one of apathy possibly hides from us the paradox of appetite lying beneath apparent disengagement. And frankly, it would be a most avoidable mishap. Any cursory observation of the political discourse space in Ghana will bear out this appetite. As I explain elsewhere, young people have become involved in political discourse at an unprecedented level. This is due in large part to the role played by digital media, especially social media.
A new generation of activists, social commentators, and government critics has arisen, and not just arisen, but seem to be turning the world upside down with their incendiary brand of commentary. But the space is not monopolised by these voices. Ordinary Ghanaians are rallying around hashtags and organise on-the-ground protests. Their activism transcends conventional themes and encompasses new ones, and they are less afraid than at any time previously to tackle issues ranging from the environment, corruption, public morality around sexuality, and, as I discuss here, gender.
Activism on social media and radio alone might not be enough to stave off democratic decline, but it is, at least, an expression of a paradoxical appetite for involvement. What this calls for is more careful listening to the concerns being raised by especially young people. It also calls for more forensic analysis of electoral outcomes, including turnout figures. In addition to why they refrained from voting, pollsters must ask abstainers directly if they care, if they consider themselves apathetic. I think they will find that youth are not tired of democracy, not even of politics, just their politicians.
Dissatisfied Democrats
In addition to revealing a paradoxical appetite for political engagement, low turnouts may also send a clear message to political elites that the people are no longer susceptible to be fooled, and that the status quo will not be tolerated. This can have the effect of opening up the political field to more viable electoral options.
It may serve, in essence, as an invitation to other, better-meaning Ghanaians to enter the political space as candidates. It may birth new political parties. The emergence of The New Force may be an early sign that this is starting to happen. The party itself may not be the solution Ghanaians are looking for, but its emergence could represent an early sign of what can possibly emerge in the future.
Ghana’s political space is crying out for viable new alternatives to the existing duopoly of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC). And the country has no lack of competent and honest human capital to fill the void. But as long as Ghanaians happily alternate between the two main parties, it is doubtful whether serious alternatives will emerge. Is it possible that drastically low voter turnout can provide the necessary instigation? I do not know if it to be encouraged, but neither am I convinced the possibility should be dismissed.
Of course, theory does not always match practice in history. But this is an intriguing possibility that political theorists and researchers should interrogate. Around the world and throughout the so-called third wave of democracy, have there been historical correlations between paradigmatic shifts in the quality of democracies after periods of low voter turnout?
I am also aware that it is not always well-intentioned civilians who answer the call. Some of the military regimes that took over in the Sahel did so after polls had already registered gross dissatisfaction with the fruits of democracy. But this is where I hope Kwaku Baako is right: hopefully, Ghana has nurtured a level of democratic culture and practice that guards against this. Another way of putting this is that it is weak democratic structures we should fear, as Kwesi Pratt does, not ordinary Ghanaians who refuse to cast a vote.
It may be more helpful to think of the non-voting Ghanaian not as a disinterested person baying for military rule, but rather as a dissatisfied democrat. Writing for the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development, John Osae-Kwapong defines dissatisfied democrats as “citizens who although are strong supporters of democracy, are dissatisfied with the way it is working.” [7] Non-voters may simply be expressing disappointment rather than apathy per se.
Shifting the Goalposts Yet Again
President Mahama and Former President Nana Akufo-Addo exchange greetings at inauguration. Source: Paul Kagame, Facebook
Another effect of lazily labelling the situation one of apathy is that it shifts the focus from the failings of politicians to “democracy” as a whole. This is not a new strategy. We have seen it deployed in relation to climate change, for example, where governments reluctant to effect environmental reforms benefit when loss of life and property is attributed to climate change as an abstract phenomenon, rather than to specific leadership failings that contribute to climate change.
Here, the same logic is leveraged to shift blame from politicians’ failure to deliver on promises to the failings of an abstract system. Worse still, the blame is laid on the doormat of an apparently disengaged citizenry. When former president Nana Akufo-Addo called on Ghanaians to be citizens and not spectators, setting aside the fact that he plagiarised the line, he tacitly named passivity as a potential enemy of development.
It is safe to say that his tenure was marked by anything but passive spectatorship by the Ghanaian populace. Political “apathy” is just another strawman on which political elites can hang some of the blame for their part in nurturing the dissatisfaction. It is a dog flogged after being given a bad name.
Politicians will sooner charge the people with disinterest than admit other possibilities. Perhaps the NPP was being punished by their now disenchanted formerly faithful, who could bring themselves to vote for the rival party either. Or perhaps they have been on a losing end of a swing in votes to the opposition. But no, a regional communications director of the NPP, would apparently have us believe that “Ghanaians did not vote the NPP out.” Rather, his party’s defeat “is due to complacency and voter apathy.” Presumably the NPP faithful thought they were going to win easily and so stayed at home. Yeah right.
In a previous article, I spoke about how the debate around the now former president’s statue hides deeper, more important questions about acceptable standards of governance. This is yet another example of how establishment players shift the goalposts to turn attention away from the real issues at play. Sadly, by failing to go beyond such superficial analysis, Ghana’s media, political think tanks, and civil society organisations are helping their cause. If anyone is apathetic, the evidence would suggest that is politicians who are apathetic to the real struggles of everyday people.
Conclusion
Has Ghana’s democracy failed so badly that the people would welcome its demise? I hope not. Is this why the northern neighbour’s military head was so loudly heralded? I doubt it. I would like to believe that at play is a solidarity with what are perceived as the anti-colonial struggles of our West African compatriots. (The complexities involved in this, of course, are deep, myriad, and out of the scope of this article).
All said, I still disagree with Mr Pratt’s assertion that military rule can be justified under certain circumstances, and only a wilful ignorance will fail to see that democracy has taken some hard hits in Ghana. But misdiagnosing the problem cannot be a healthy part of the solution.
In a much different sense than the one meant in the new president’s slogan, Ghana’s democracy does need something of a reset. One aspect of this reset must be a reframing of the political discourse such that it accounts for the nuance of political expression that may be contained in the actions of the people, as well as in their apparent inactions.
Abstaining from voting can be one such apparent inaction. It can serve as a silent protest that, if silent enough, can speak loud and clear. It can, if well understood and conscientiously harnessed, provide a path towards a reset, not in some abstract notion of democracy, but in the real quality of politician we choose to deal with.
Ghanaians are not tired of democracy, just of their politicians. If there were a “none of the above” slot on the ballot on December 7th, I wonder how many votes it would have garnered.
This article is adapted from of this original.
Agana-Nsiire Agana (PhD) is a writer and social commentator who was nominated in 2020 for the Millennium Excellence Award in literature. He lives in the United Kingdom and writes at https://hisownaffairs.substack.com.
References
- [1] Afrobarometer, African Insights 2024: Democracy at Risk – the People’s Perspective, https://www.afrobarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Afrobarometer_FlagshipReport2024_English.pdf.
- [2] Bart Cammaerts, Bruter, M., Banaji, S., Harrison, S., & Anstead, N, “The Myth of Youth Apathy: Young Europeans’ Critical Attitudes Toward Democratic Life,” American Behavioral Scientist, 58, no. 5 (2014):14-15. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764213515992.
- [3] Cammaerts et al., 15.
- [4] Cammaerts et al., 4.
- [5] Cammaerts et al., 15.
- [6] Cammaerts et al., 4.
- [7] John Osae-Kwapong, “Ghana’s Changing Democracy Landscape: Shrinking Satisfied Democrats, Growing Dissatisfied Democrats,” CDD Ghana, https://cddgh.org/2024/09/ghanas-changing-democracy-landscape-shrinking-satisfied-democrats-growing-dissatisfied-democrats.