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Ghana District Assembly Elections
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Sessional Meeting of a House of Chiefs
Courtesy Embassy of Ghana, Washington
The main political preoccupations of the PNDC and the Ghanaian
public in 1988 were the implementation of the government's
decentralization program and the elections to the new District
Assemblies (DAs). In a speech commemorating his fifth year in power
in January 1987, Rawlings had announced proposals for the
decentralization of government. These had included promises of
elections for DAs and a national debate on the ERP. The debate on
the ERP never materialized, but debates on the elections and the
DAs did.
Among the radical changes introduced in local government
elections were provisions that no cash deposits were required of
candidates for district level elections and that illiteracy in
English was no longer a disqualification. To accommodate nonEnglish speakers in the DAs and to make assembly debates accessible
to the majority of constituents, local languages could be used in
the DAs. The elections were to be nonpartisan: the ban on political
parties was not lifted. Implementation of the decentralization
program and preparation for the district elections did not
completely silence the opposition nor did it remove the sources of
public discontent and disaffection toward the government within
some sections of the Ghanaian population.
In 1988 there was no indication of what political structures
and institutions would be established above the DAs at regional and
national levels. Nor was it clear whether creation of the DAs was
intended to broaden the civilian support base of the PNDC, thereby
legitimizing and perpetuating PNDC rule indefinitely. Some felt
that the word "provisional" in the regime's name sounded a bit
hollow after five years in power. Indeed, many read the proposed
district elections as a strategy similar to the union government
proposal in 1978 that had not been implemented because of its
widespread unpopularity
(see The National Redemption Council Years, 1972-79
, ch. 1).
In February 1988, Adu Boahen, a retired history professor and
later a presidential candidate and Rawlings's main challenger,
delivered three lectures in which he severely criticized military
rule in Ghana and the PNDC regime in particular as the cause of
political instability. He affirmed that the AFRC led by Rawlings in
1979 was completely unnecessary. He attacked the alleged domination
of the PNDC regime and of major national institutions by the Ewe
and called for an interim coalition government within a year and
for a return to multiparty democracy by 1992. The state-owned
national media attacked Boahen's criticism of the PNDC but did not
report the original text of the lectures.
For the DA elections, the country was divided into three zones
by region. Zone one consisted of Western Region, Central Region,
Ashanti Region, and Eastern Region; zone two, of Upper East Region,
Upper West Region, and Northern Region; zone three, of Greater
Accra Region, Volta Region, and Brong-Ahafo Region. The first round
of the nonpartisan elections took place on December 6, 1988, in
zone one of the country, with polling in zones two and three
following on January 31 and February 28, 1989, respectively (see
table 12, Appendix). District election committees disqualified
several candidates in a number of districts for various offenses,
including nonpayment of taxes, refusal to participate in communal
labor, and shirking other civic responsibilities. With an estimated
average turnout rate of about 60 percent of registered voters (some
rural districts had a 90 percent turnout), the highest for any
election in two decades, most Ghanaians saw this first step toward
the establishment of national democratic institutions as quite
successful. The opposition, although critical of the composition of
the DAs, accepted the assemblies in principle.
The DAs gave new momentum to the exercise of grass-roots
democracy as well as to local determination of and implementation
of development projects. The principle of nonpartisan,
decentralized political structure proved popular. By-laws passed by
the DAs had to be deposited with the PNDC secretariat immediately
after their passage. If within twenty-one days the PNDC raised no
objection to them, they automatically became law.
Some elected representatives, a majority of whom were farmers
and school teachers, resented the fact that PNDC appointees, mostly
chiefs and professionals who constituted one-third of the
memberships of the DAs, often sought to dominate the proceedings.
Also, most of the districts and their people were poor, and the
DAs' quick resort to taxes and numerous levies to raise much needed
revenue proved burdensome and unpopular. In some parts of country,
for example Cape Coast and Accra, there were protests and tax
revolts. In August 1989, regional coordinating councils were formed
in all ten regions to streamline the work of the DAs and to
coordinate district policies and projects. The PNDC made it clear
that DAs had no power to collect or to levy income taxes.
Data as of November 1994
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