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Ghana Presidential Elections
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Campaign billboards erected for the national elections
of late 1992. Such billboards appeared throughout Ghana,
an indication of the competitive nature of the elections.
Courtesy James Sanders
Despite protests and demands for a new voters' register, which
had not been met when nominations for presidential candidates for
the November 3 elections closed on September 29, 1992, five
presidential candidates representing five political parties filed
their nomination papers. Apart from Rawlings, who after months of
uncertainty decided to run as a candidate for the National
Democratic Congress (NDC), the other four presidential candidates
were Adu Boahen of the New Patriotic Party (NPP); Hilla Limann,
former president of Ghana, of the People's National Convention
(PNC); Kwabena Darko, a multimillionaire businessman, of the
National Independence Party (NIP); and Lieutenant General (retired)
Emmanuel Erskine, of the People's Heritage Party (PHP). The PNC,
the NIP, and the PHP were all Nkrumahists. A much discussed
alliance among these fractious and disorganized parties did not
materialize, even though just before the elections there was talk
of a possible grand anti-Rawlings coalition.
The real issue of the 1992 presidential election was whether
Rawlings would succeed in holding on to power as a democratically
elected head of state after nearly eleven years as an unelected
one. The slogan of the NDC was "continuity," meaning the continuity
of PNDC policies. In fact, to many Ghanaians, the NDC party was the
same as the PNDC without the initial "P." The opposition, by
contrast, could not articulate a clear, consistent, and convincing
alternative program.
The most serious challenge to Rawlings came from Boahen, who
had significant support among the urban middle classes and among
his ethnic kin in Ashanti Region. The inevitable split of the
Nkrumahist vote weakened the chances of each of the three
Nkrumahist candidates. Darko was hardly known outside Kumasi and
Accra, and Limann was popularly seen as a weak and dull leader.
Erskine was hardly a household word, even in Central Region where
he came from. The presidential election was not fought over
ideology or clearly presented political programs, but rather over
personalities, over Rawlings's human rights record, and over
allegations that he had been in power for too long.
After elections in 200 constituencies (sixty new electoral
constituencies had been added to the old 140) on November 3, 1992,
Rawlings won a convincing majority over all his opponents combined.
The margin of victory surprised not only Rawlings, but his
political rivals as well. The hoped-for run-off election did not
materialize because Rawlings had gained an outright majority of
almost 60 percent of the nearly 4 million votes cast.
Rawlings won resoundingly in regions where his opponents,
especially Boahen, had been expected to carry the day. Boahen
received 30.4 percent of the total votes; Limann, 6.7 percent;
Darko, 2.8 percent; Erskine, 1.7 percent; and Rawlings, 58.3
percent. Rawlings even won 62 percent of the vote in Brong-Ahafo
Region, which was considered a stronghold of the Danquah-Busia
political tradition. He also won in the Greater Accra Region, where
NUGS, the GBA, the TUC, and the middle-class opposition had been
unsparing in their anti-PNDC attacks. Boahen received a majority
vote in his NPP heartland, Ashanti Region, and in the Eastern
Region where he was born.
A public opinion poll conducted in late 1990 and early 1991 in
Accra, Kumasi, and Sekondi-Takoradi indicated some of the reasons
for Rawlings's victory. The poll suggested that, in spite of the
PNDC's record of human rights abuses and the negative impact of the
ERP, the PNDC was more popular in urban areas than had been
thought. The PNDC was perceived as having done much to rehabilitate
the country's infrastructure, to instill national pride, and to
improve the efficiency and honesty of government spending. Although
many of the respondents felt that their standard of living had
worsened since the PNDC came to power and since the implementation
of the Structural Adjustment Program, a significant number also
indicated that they and the country would have been worse off
without the ERP. Although many considered the PNDC too
authoritarian, Rawlings personally continued to be very popular and
received much of the credit for the PNDC's successes, while the
PNDC as a whole was blamed for its more negative characteristics.
The shock of the NPP's electoral defeat led immediately to
disturbances in some regional capitals. A curfew was imposed in
Kumasi, but in most of the country, the results were accepted
without incident. The opposition parties, however, immediately
protested, crying fraud as well as rigging of the ballot and asking
the interim electoral commission not to declare a winner until
allegations of irregularities had been investigated. On November
10, however, the commission formally declared Rawlings the winner.
Meanwhile, the opposition parties had announced their intention
to boycott the parliamentary elections rescheduled from December 8
to December 29, following an appeal to the interim electoral
commission. Efforts to get the opposition to reconsider its boycott
proved unsuccessful, even after the National House of Chiefs
announced in late November that it felt the presidential election
had been fair and free. Many European ambassadors in Accra likewise
announced that they had no difficulty recognizing Rawlings's
victory. International election monitoring teams from the
Organization of African Unity, the Commonwealth of Nations, and the
Carter Center in the United States also endorsed the results of the
presidential election, although with reservations in some cases.
Data as of November 1994
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