Chapter 2 Ghana

Ghana is considered by many to be a beacon of hope for West African democracy. The country’s national electoral system includes both presidential and parliamentary elections: the former utilises a majoritarian system (two-round system); while the latter involves a single-member constituency election (electoral constituencies represented by a single officeholder) based on a first-past-the-post (FPTP) system or the ‘winner-takes-it all’ system. This system tends to favour larger, well-established parties and is not conducive for newcomers like women.

Scholars Sam Hickey and Sohela Nazneen label Ghana a ‘competitive clientelist cluster’, whereby competition takes place between two major parties (a duopoly) and informal patron–client relations play a vital role. The two major parties New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC) have exchanged power at every second election since Ghana’s first democratic vote in 1992. Most recently, the NDC assumed power in the 2024 elections, which saw a woman vice-president – Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang – elected for the first time. The NDC is linked to the Nkrumaist tradition, which – according to a 2009 work by scholar Whitfield – is perceived as ethnically and socially inclusive, broad-based, populist and left-wing, whereas NPP is linked to the Danquah/Busia tradition, which is perceived as elitist, ethnically exclusive (mostly Ashanti and Akyem subgroups of the Akan), liberal democratic and right-wing.

Electoral violence in Ghana often involves beatings, threats and intimidation. In 2024, more frequent and severe cases of electoral violence – including incidents of shooting – were observed compared to previous national elections. Altogether, 42 incidences were recorded by the National Peace Council and the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding. In the constituencies where data collection took place – Asokwa in the Ashanti region, Ablekuma West / North in the Accra region and. Awutu Senya East in the Central region – general electoral violence took place. In Awutu Senya East a shooting incident resulted in one person being killed and another injured. In Ablekuma North one of the election winners could not be declared due to violence, while in the recent rerun former minister Mavis Hawa Komsoom was physically assaulted. In Ablekuma West several violent incidents occurred at the collation centre, and in Asokwa various localised incidents flared.

The local government system

Women were entirely excluded from the governance structures established by the British colonial authorities, which instead emphasised the role of male chiefs in line with the indirect ruling. Scholar Manuh’s 2014 work describes how Kwame Nkrumah’s pre-independence government introduced a new local government system and made initial attempts to change this, with a limited number of women elected to wards in Accra and Cape Coast. Following independence in 1957, more women from Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party were elected to wards in Ghana. It was, however, Jerry Rawlings’s military regime that undertook decentralisation reforms in 1983 establishing district assemblies and unit committees.

Ghana’s local elections do not take place at the same time as its presidential and parliamentary elections. Moreover, they are – at least in theory – non-party political, with candidates running based on their personal credentials and local standing in the community. Ghana’s 1992 constitution specifies that:

A candidate seeking election to a district assembly or any lower government unit shall present himself [or herself] to the electorate as an individual, and shall not use any symbol associated with any political party. A political party shall not endorse, sponsor, offer a platform to or in any way campaign for or against a candidate seeking election to a district assembly or any lower local government unit.

In practice, however, political parties do play a significant role in local elections, as illustrated by the party colours used in many election posters and, sometimes, women’s jewellery.

District assembly elections take place every four years, when two-thirds of the seats in each of the 261 district administrations are contested. In the most recent 2023 elections, 259 of 1,049 female candidates won, compared to 5,984 of 16,925 male candidates, indicating a higher success rate for the latter. More women should be vying for these positions but are deterred by for example GEV. In accordance with a 1998 directive, the president – in consultation with traditional authorities and other interest groups – appoints the remaining third of members. Of these, half should be women, although actual implementation of this rule varies from district to district as it is not legally enforced.

Each district assembly is headed by a chief executive appointed by the president and approved by assembly members. The assemblies bear overall responsibility for their respective district’s development, including approving the district plan and setting budgets for implementation, programmes and strategies. An assembly’s tasks encompass the following functions: economic activity and social development; basic infrastructure and municipal works and services; human settlements and the environment; security and public safety; access to courts; and commissioning relevant studies. Meetings take place at the district assemblies, with members given sitting allowances.

Unit committees represent the lowest level of the local government system, and as such are the closest to communities. Their duties include supervising district assembly staff; assisting with revenue collection (including keeping accurate records of persons and properties); making funding proposals for projects and programmes; and monitoring existing development projects. They are also responsible for ensuring local participation, including organising communal and voluntary work; educating communities on their rights; providing focal points for local debates; and making recommendations to the assembly. Unit committee meetings take place separately from the district assembly and do not include sitting allowances. While other levels of local governance exist, all the women interviewed for this study were active at either a district assembly or unit committee level.

The Affirmative Action Act

Despite the passing of the Affirmative Action Act in July 2024, the elections held later that year saw just 119 female candidates (17 percent) running compared to 682 (83 percent) male candidates. Following the 2024 elections, women’s parliamentary representation remained at 15 percent. Meanwhile, in the 2023 district assembly election, a mere 4.1 percent of those elected were women – a marginal 0.3 percent increase compared to the 2019 election. No figures are available for the number of women active in unit committees.

The Affirmative Action Act had been pending since 2011, with the Coalition for Affirmative Action – formed by gender activists – pressing hard for its adoption. The act states that women’s representation at the national level should be at least 30 percent by 2026; 35 percent by 2028; and 50 percent by 2030. Both major parties fell well below these targets at the 2024 elections, which left the NDC with 30 female MPs (16 percent of its MPs) and the NPP just 10 MPs (11 percent). In light of these figures, the African Union election observer mission recommended that the affirmative action legislation be implemented in full.

Generally, the broad-based nature of the act including all areas of society makes it imperative to keep the focus on political representation. According to the act, political parties ‘shall ensure the progressive achievement of the gender equality targets set out’ by providing information and financial resources in support of gender equality; as well as promoting the nomination of women candidates and appointment of female party officials at a national, regional and district level. At a parliamentary level, this includes important initiatives such as, training potential women candidates; a mentoring programme utilising senior women MPs; follow-up on the experiences of women MPs; and developing a database of aspiring women candidates.

The act also states that the president should ensure gender equity when appointing district assembly chief executives and approving nominations. In addition, the act sets out local-level strategies. Alongside granting women district assembly members responsibility for running ‘the affairs of women’, many of these strategies mirror those mentioned above: for example, training and mentoring women district assembly candidates; and establishing a database of women aspirants. Moreover, the act stipulates that a gender equity criterion be used when assessing the district assemblies’ common fund for development, and a ‘stick and carrot’ regime be employed to ensure assemblies comply with the act. Although the act does not include designated targets for women’s local-level representation, it does task the president with several undertakings as mentioned.

The act is a ‘soft law’ with no legal repercussions. As such, its implementation relies on the goodwill of male party members. Nevertheless, the act mandates that a gender equity committee hosted by the Ministry for Gender, Children and Social Protection be established to oversee implementation, incorporating representatives from – among others – the Ministry of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development and civil society, thereby ensuring a degree of local-level focus. This committee has only recently been established (a year after the act was adopted), but has not yet been allocated the resources it needs to operate. This suggests an urgent need for high-level political support and advocacy aimed at ensuring full implementation takes place. However, the affirmative act has an isolated focus on numbers for women’s political representation.

In order to address the low levels of women’s political representation experienced in local government, Ghana’s Institute for Democratic Governance has suggested combining a women-only proportional list with the traditional FPTP electoral system in which women can also run as candidates.

Political violence, gender and local elections

The Making Politics Safer study conducted interviews with 36 women district assembly members (AM) or unit committee members (UCM) – elected, appointed and unelected political candidates from three regions in Ghana. Despite the country’s local elections theoretically being exempt from party political affiliation, all the women political candidates identified themselves as belonging to a political party. The difference between the local government levels is that the stakes are higher in the district assembly elections, but it is also important to bear in mind that some of the women have held more than one position for example first as UCM and later AM.

The informants reported being exposed to many types of violence. Verbal or semiotic violence is widespread among the women interviewed, including systematic insults, ridicule and rumours targeting women’s looks, sexuality and gender. One form this verbal violence takes is condemnation of supposed ‘loose’ morals weaponizing their sex against them through name-calling and slut-shaming. One assembly woman described about her experiences of vying how ‘as a woman they will say a lot about you – especially as a woman without a husband. If they see you with other men, they will say that men are using you because of positions of favour’. Another example is how candidates are accused of destroying marriages and rumours being spread of women candidates attempting to ‘snatch husbands’. However, in this case the woman voter did not believe the rumours and still supported the woman candidate. Women candidates are also accused of being prostitutes, with claims that ‘it’s only a prostitute who enters politics and starts behaving like a man. They accuse you of sleeping around or of seeing you in some hotels, meanwhile you have never been to that hotel before’. Such abuse takes place both within the political parties and in wider society, undermining candidates and causing distress to their families.

A second type of verbal violence relates to body-shaming through comments such as ‘Eii, Oboloe [fat person], this woman can’t walk and you want to be an assembly member’. Abuse like this can take place in-person and, especially, online. In the latter case, outdated pictures attacking candidates may be posted, or degrading comments put on their social media profiles WhatsApp or Facebook.

A third type of verbal violence relates to questioning a candidate’s belonging and indigeneity to the local constituency. One woman vying for a district assembly position reported that ‘they fabricated stories about me and that I am not really available and do not even stay in the area’. Similarly, another assembly member recounted how she was ‘sabotaged’ as ‘when they go around campaigning, they tell them: “Don’t vote for this woman, she does not stay here, so what is she going to do for you”. This was despite the fact she had lived in the area for many years and, in addition to looking after her mother, had a shop there.

Women political candidates are also exposed to psychological violence and the deployment of tactics in the form of intimidation, with, for example, gangs of men appearing when an illegal land site or dump refuse is inspected in order to deter candidates from involving the police. There have also been episodes where a candidate’s car side mirrors/lights have been vandalised during campaigning. One assembly member candidate, who gave serious consideration to stepping down, said: ‘I just came and saw the whole thing and I said “wow” – the intimidation was a lot’.

Another form of psychological violence involves the use of curses. Here, one assembly member candidate accounted of being ‘spiritually attacked’ by a male rival, who had visited a nearby fetish shrine. As a consequence, she only drinks water from a specific bottle to avoid getting headaches. In communities where traditional beliefs are widespread, such curses provide a powerful tool for intimidating a political opponent. Furthermore, some women candidates are subject to threats designed to deter them from running. One woman was told that her opponent would ‘see to it that she loses’. In this case, the woman was promised a position as government-appointed assembly member if she stepped down. She did so, but the promise was not fulfilled and she went on to successfully contest the most recent district assembly elections. Other women candidates account of similar stories of trying to enter political spaces, only to be excluded by male political gatekeepers and patriarchal political arrangements.

Some women reported sexual violence in the form of inappropriate touching and leering during campaigning, as well as unwanted sexual propositions or sexual harassment. One unit committee member, having rebuffed advances by saying she was already married, was told that ‘in politics we don’t do I’m married’, while an assembly member stated she just ‘jokes with it’ if party members propose to her. Another assembly member reported how sexual violence also has the form of some women candidates feeling trapped when they are invited to meetings which are seemingly about politics ‘You may think you are going to discuss politics, but you will go there and he will start making sexual advances. He will be having sexual discussions trying to put your mind in it. But you have to act smart and reject them’. Here, the transactional nature of support and gift-giving among some men presents concerns for women’s safety.

Economic violence in the form of the removal or destruction of campaign materials – often posters – can prove costly for women candidates. Also problematic is when community members boycott a woman’s business or threaten her livelihood due to her political affiliation. In some cases, this means women are forced to engage in long-distance trading. There are also examples of women candidates being sacked from their jobs in retaliation for supporting a particular political party, or facing other material consequences. One unit committee member described how for the women candidates and their families as in this case, where ‘The proprietor of the school my son attends told me that I am going for the position he wanted to contest for, so I should find another school for my child’, and further that ‘My landlord at my former house told me to move from his house because he didn’t know I was from this party’. Despite supposedly being exempt from party politics, local elections are riven by such divisions, often to the detriment of women candidates.

Not all perpetrators of GEV are men. When it comes to national elections especially, women active in local-level politics are frequently mobilised by the political parties. Several informants reported facing physical violence during national elections by both male and female perpetrators:

‘The problem started when the assembly candidates brought in people to vote for them. After the elections when they started counting the votes, each of the contestants said they had won and this led to violence … Someone threw a cane and I had to get down to avoid being hurt’.

‘After the elections there were attempts by the opponents to fight us, so we had to find a way to protect us from the attacks … Some came with cutlasses, some with pieces of wood, others were driving hazardously and some were even throwing stones.’

‘I have had instances where I was in a forum speaking and the opponent started pushing me to go away. Also, they often bring gangs who will try to intimidate you and then sometimes as you are speaking, you’d hear them making noise in the background as a way of confusing you’.

Such violence and intimidation risks deterring women from engaging in politics in any form.

Safety work

Women use various strategies to maximise their security and minimise the risks associated with being politically active. Scholars Fiona Vera-Gray and Liz Kelly label this ‘safety work’, understood as ‘The work women do as a precursor to stop the violence happening at all’ implying that femininity in political spaces is perceived as a risk against male dominance and patriarchal political structures. In the Ghana context, such work includes:

• Campaigning in groups with fellow women or higher-ranking men active in local politics.
• Avoiding campaigning at the same time as the opposition in certain areas.
• Identifying unsafe zones and staying away from areas subject to election-related conflicts, such as particular land sites, polling stations and collation centres.
• Deploying security for oneself through hiring male guards.
• Sharing experiences with a political mentor or the party leadership.

In effect, safe work involves both the ‘avoidance’ of particular spaces, and ‘self-protection’ when unsafe situations cannot be avoided, forestalling the even greater amounts of GEV that would likely occur, if women did not engage in ‘safety work’.

On the one hand, women active in local politics are usually passionate about their work and reluctant to give it up. They have ideas for development of their local areas and empowerment of other women and, they enjoy the respect associated with being ‘honourable’, the exposure and widening their local networks. On the other hand, many are deeply discouraged by their experiences, to the point of suffering mental health issues like depression and being advised by their families to quit. As one assembly member observed: ‘It drains you psychologically unless you get someone who advises you and encourages you. If not, you won’t survive. Even if you go into public spaces, you will be feeling shy. All these words they tell you linger in your mind’. In this respect, many of the informants seek support and advice from political mentors and resource persons – among others – local or former MPs, assembly members, or pastors. helping them to cope and advising them to focus on their own political work and not be affected by ‘mafia’ tactics.

Other legal frameworks and initiatives relevant to gendered electoral violence

In terms of Ghana’s national legal framework, the general provisions on presidential and parliamentary elections laid out in the 1992 Representation of the People Law state that a person who ‘Compels, induces, or attempts to compel, or induce a candidate to withdraw his candidature, or a voter with injury, or harm of any kind’ is committing an offence.

The 2016 Local Governance Act, meanwhile, contains provisions for the inclusion and integration of marginalised groups – including protection from discrimination based on gender and equality of treatment in political life – which district assemblies are tasked with applying. Generally, it provides protection from discrimination based on gender. In particular, the section on violence emphasises ‘Special protection to vulnerable persons [like women] subject to threats or acts of discrimination, hostility, violence and abuse as a result of their identity’. Furthermore, it stresses affirmative action and the promotion of political participation for marginalised groups [like women]. While such measures hold the possibility of appointing women to district assemblies, to date this has not been effectively implemented.

Finally, the new Affirmative Action Act does not have any specific provision on gendered electoral violence. However, the 2007 Domestic Violence Act offers a framework that includes the establishment of Domestic Violence and Victims Support Units within the Ghana police.

Generally, there has been a lot of focus from civil society on the Affirmative Action Act and its adoption by parliament. The Affirmative Action and Law Enforcement Coalition will continue to advocate for its actual implementation and reaching of the target set for women’s political representation. However, it is imperative also to address aspects of gendered electoral violence to ensure women candidates will continue to be competing in elections. In terms of project initiatives, IDEG has suggested a new model for women’s representation at the local government level, while women’s organisations such as Abantu for Development are conducting training activities for women candidates, including a focus on GEV. In 2020, the Gender Centre for Empowering Development published a report on violence against politically active women and has also later conducted training and supported women candidates through online campaigns.

Elsewhere, UNDP is currently running a project focused on women’s political representation and peacebuilding in two districts in northern Ghana, while organisations such as the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding are providing electoral monitoring and ‘women’s situation rooms’ with training of observers to report violent incidents, situation rooms where members analyse the report and a group of women mediating in electoral disputes. Other organisations have previously pursued initiatives targeting women active in local-level politics like training, but have not been able to secure the funding needed to continue their work.