Ghana's Elections Are Determined by Policies That Touch Lives, Not By Noise -- A Call For Focus On The People And Impartial Institutions

Ghana has spoken before. Ghana will speak again. The power is with the people.

Since 1992, the electoral history of this country has taught us one consistent lesson. It is not state institutions that decide who governs. It is not the police, the judges, or the loud bloggers on social media. It is the Ghanaian voter who decides, based on what directly affects his life and his family.

Every government in power has tried to project itself. That is natural. Governments use state institutions to communicate their achievements. Some go further and hire bloggers and influencers to blow minor projects out of proportion. They buy a few buses and want us to believe they have built a new transport system. They paint a school block and expect national applause. While this propaganda may dominate the airwaves for a few days, it does not change the reality of the market woman who cannot afford food, or the young graduate who has no job.

What is more worrying today is the dangerous path we have started walking again. We are seeing the use of security agents to victimize political opponents. People are arrested and detained for minor offences, offences that would otherwise attract a caution or bail. At the same time, serious crimes committed by members of the ruling party are ignored. We have seen allegations as grave as the rape and defilement of school children being treated with shocking silence, while opposition voices are chased over social media comments.

This selective justice is done with a clear intent. It is meant to make opponents look bad, so that the government will look good. But this strategy has always failed in Ghana.

The Ghanaian voter is not interested in how many opponents you have arrested. The voter is interested in whether his child can go to school freely. The voter is interested in whether his mother can access health care without paying. The voter is interested in policies that touch his life directly.

That is why policies like Free SHS, NHIS and free maternal care remain in the hearts of Ghanaians. Even when governments tried to discredit them, the people embraced them because they alleviated suffering. That is the kind of governance that wins elections, not intimidation.

This is therefore a piece of advice to the government in power. Concentrate on alleviating the suffering of Ghanaians. The cost of living is high. The cedi is under pressure. Youth unemployment is rising. Businesses are collapsing under taxes and high utility bills. These are the issues that will determine 2028, not how many opposition members you detain. If you want to stay in power, introduce tangible policies that reduce the burden on the ordinary Ghanaian. If you fail to do that, no amount of propaganda or arrests will save you, because the Ghanaian electorate has proven that they vote on their living conditions, not on press conferences by security agencies.

To the judges, the police and other public servants, you must also be careful. History is watching you. When you allow yourselves to be turned into political weapons for the government in power, you forget that governments change but your institution remains. The government that is using you today will leave office tomorrow, but the blemish you put on your professional record will remain.

You do not decide who wins elections. The citizens who suffer from your biased and unprofessional decisions do. When a judge remands an opposition member for weeks over a bailable offence while granting instant bail to a ruling party member accused of defiling a child, the public loses confidence in the judiciary. When police officers rush to arrest critics but look away when ruling party foot soldiers break the law, the public loses confidence in the police.

In the end, those citizens will punish you at the ballot box by voting out the government you were trying to protect, and they will remember you as part of the oppression.

Ghana's democracy survived because citizens believed in fairness. Let us not destroy that belief. Let the government do real work. Let the institutions act with integrity. The electorate is watching.G