Ghana’s post-election violence is a window into an ominous future averted — or postponed

Political analysts and securocrats have recently debated the potential for a coup d’état in 21st-century Ghana, citing a wave of military governments across West Africa.

My stance has always been that, while difficult, one could occur with the right political opportunity. Those who disagree may point to a Ghana that has experienced 32 years of democracy, five presidents, and nine elections. Ironically, however, the outcome of Ghana’s latest elections presents strong evidence for my position.

The 2024 elections say much more about a future that could have been. Our elders say that when a rope tightens and tightens, it snaps. In the last few years, one socio-economic or political crisis or another has punctuated different intervals of governance in Ghana. The rope had been tightening hard. The violence that followed the elections—the riots, vandalism, arsons, beatings, attacks on security agents, and fatalities—is a natural progression of that tightened rope.

A Ghana beyond the 2024 elections under an unrepentant government would have pushed the country a few rungs up towards political instability. Thankfully, the 2024 elections sagged the rope—a poignant demonstration of one of the benefits of our democracy despite its inherent flaws. In this sense, irrespective of what the incoming administration does, a break with the past is the most comforting outcome of the 2024 election.

So, hail the protest votes!

The election relaxed the rope because it allowed citizens a more legitimate avenue to vent their spleens before disgruntled elements in the country could exploit their angst and destabilise Ghana. The NPP’s historic loss signifies a loud cry for help.

Since assuming office in 2017, the NPP administration has supervised a dramatic economic downturn. Inflation peaked at 54.1% in December 2022. The Ghanaian cedi suffered unprecedented depreciation, requiring 16 cedis to purchase one US dollar in 2024, compared to four cedis at the start of Akufo-Addo’s presidency.

For an economy heavily reliant on imports, this devaluation wreaked havoc on businesses. Traders were forced to pay increasingly exorbitant amounts for foreign currency to sustain operations. These costs were inevitably passed on to consumers, leading to skyrocketing prices of essential goods and services.

Domestic and foreign debt restructuring programs further scarred the financial landscape. Pensioners and investors were brutally scathed.

Corruption allegations and perceived nepotism compounded public anger. Amateurish comments and gestures from the president and some of his ministers insulted Ghanaians’ sensibilities and added to their suffering. Their political body language sold the NPP, even if erroneously, as an arrogant and ethnocentric party that was Akyem first and Ghanaian second.

It will be unfair, however, to interpret the election outcome against the NPP alone. Their landslide defeat was not an event but a process. The protest vote reflects a broader pattern of political stagnation across Africa and a history of unfulfilled promises in Ghana. Ghana’s political duopoly—dominated by the NPP and NDC—has perpetuated a recycled pattern of governance that offers little meaningful change. These parties profess different ideological foundations.

Yet both have favoured populist and short-term policies that prioritise electoral success over long-term national development. As a result, the electorate had been increasingly frustrated, not with the NPP per se, but with what they saw as two sides of the same coin.

Therefore, the outcome of Ghana’s 2024 elections is more of a decisive rejection of the incumbent NPP than a full endorsement of the opposition NDC. Ghanaians turned out to vote not because they were inspired by the NDC’s promises of a “24-hour economy”—a concept the party struggled to explain sometimes—but because they were resisting governance that suffocates.

Post-election violence is a symptom

No wonder that apart from the unprecedented NDC win, the most visible outcome of the elections has been the acts of violence across the country. Ayensuano, angry youth set the Electoral Commission office ablaze. The arson, reportedly carried out by individuals dissatisfied with the declaration of results, symbolises a loss of faith in the fairness and credibility of Ghana’s electoral processes. The same goes for the standoff at the Ghana Gas Headquarters, where security forces fired warning shots to disperse a crowd of protesters.

In Mamobi, hooded individuals paraded through the streets on vehicles and motorbikes. Road blockades in areas like Ashaley Botwe and celebrations exacerbated traffic congestion and disrupted daily life. In places like Obuasi, civilians and party members were in direct showdown with military officers. Several shooting incidents led to four dead and many injured.

These incidents, among many others, are not new to Ghana’s electoral landscape. In past elections, it was not uncommon for the winning party supporters to take over public facilities like toll booths and toilets as a symbolic assertion of power. However, the 2024 post-election chaos has gone far beyond these traditions. Indeed, if what we are witnessing in Ghana is a democracy at all, then it is “democracy on steroids” that should not be celebrated, especially when lives are being lost and properties being destroyed.

The law is compromised; we are the law!

But the unrest did not take place in isolation. The economic hardships that defined the Akufo-Addo administration had created a fertile ground for discontent. This sentiment is supported by Afrobarometer’s 2024 report, which revealed that 82% of Ghanaians believed the country was headed in the wrong direction.

Under Akufo-Addo, Ghana’s democratic institutions have eroded. Press freedom rankings have plummeted. Judicial impartiality scores declined, with several cases of delayed and selective enforcement of justice.

Even before the elections, there was a loud silence indicating that the NDC did not trust either the Electoral Commission (EC) or the judiciary to resolve any post-election disputes. To the NDC and its supporters, if they left the electoral verdict to the EC and the judiciary, these institutions would not fail to betray that trust. Their evidence? 2020. Techiman, to be precise.

The party and people’s distrust of political institutions and democratic mechanisms caused them to take power into their own hands. In their minds, they couldn’t leave it to the police to do it. They couldn’t trust the judiciary—it is compromised. They couldn’t trust the Electoral Commission—it is indeed compromised. The NDC and its supporters were not entirely wrong: the Afrobarometer survey lists the police and the judiciary among Ghana’s three most untrusted institutions.

The NDC and its supporters were thus determined to guard the ballot boxes like hungry snakes and win the elections at the polling stations, not the collation centres. So, while the NDC leaders’ public gestures and pronouncements were intended to energise political bases and engender vigilance, they fed into an atmosphere of distrust and retribution among party supporters, which inadvertently normalised violence.

Youth on democratic steroids

Ghana’s youth was a fundamental source of angst. Unemployment reached alarming levels, leaving many young people struggling to make ends meet. The government did little to address the pressing issues of job creation and economic empowerment for the country’s burgeoning youth population.

Meanwhile, the youth saw the government prepared to spend hundreds of millions on building a national cathedral. They saw the NPP government appointing family and friends rather than Ghanaians. Unsurprisingly, the aftermath of the elections saw significant youth involvement in protests and unrest. They were venting their spleens, even if it was unclear what the incoming administration had for them.

The 2024 elections marked a turning point where young voters began to massively assert their desire for leaders who represent their aspirations rather than the interests of political elites. They had seen the power of youth—via social media, in Kenya, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, and elsewhere—and realised that the future is theirs to lose, which they will if they don’t act now.

The NPP should have seen this coming, as youth-led protests and journalists clashed with the government and its agencies over many years. The youth silently screamed to be heard. But all they got was politicians making their usual promises and painting their opponents in the colours of the evil that they themselves were.

The Hausa people say if you refuse to sweep a place of purity, you must sweep a place of filth. Politicians had a choice—to hear the youth out, or they would crush the gates of the government house, destroying the building and all it contained. The government refused to sweep a place of purity—hearing the youth. As a result, they are sweeping a place of filth—suffering electoral humiliation leading to violence.

 A future averted or future postponed?

In many West African countries, the youth have celebrated military dictatorships. Their anger has paved the way for disruptive politics, which unsettled the entire region. All that was needed for a similar situation in Ghana was political opportunity, which was becoming more and more likely due to the multiple moving governance crises of the last few years, each of which was at a dangerous threshold. The elections may have prevented Ghana from bestriding that threshold. In this sense, while cases of post-election violence are unfortunate, the only alternative under the circumstances could have been far less peaceful.

The outcome of the 2024 elections has thus provided a window into the future. It is a future that the elections may have averted—but only if leaders heed the signs. Otherwise, it is a future that has only been postponed—a future to come when the rope tightens beyond that dangerous threshold. What the next administrations do will determine which of the two futures Ghanaians should prepare for.

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The writer, Dr Muhammad Dan Suleiman is the founder of the Centre for Alternative Politics & Security West Africa (www.caps-wa.org). He is an adjunct research fellow at the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry at Curtin University, Australia, and an Assistant Professor of International Relations at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia. Email: alternatives@caps-wa.org