CODESRIA’S MULTINATIONAL WORKING GROUP ONCITIZENSHIP AND IDENTITY IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICA, 2005-2006
PROJECT REPORT
THE SETTLER FACTOR IN THE ELECTORAL POLITICS OF GHANA’S FOURTH REPUBLIC: A STUDY OF FIVE CONSTITUENCIES IN ASHANTI AND EASTERN REGIONS[1]
ALEXANDER K. D. FREMPONG
1.0: INTRODUCTION
In December 2004, Ghanaians witnessed the fourth in an unbroken chain of general elections since 1992. Governments formed after elections, since the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah and the Convention People’s Party (CPP) regime in 1966 had also been overthrown half way through their first terms followed by long spells of military rule (1981-1992).
Until 1992, two main political traditions – the Nkrumahist and the Danquah-Busiaist - had dominated Ghanaian politics. The Nkrumahist under President Nkrumah led the country to independence and ruled for nine years. Thirteen years after it was overthrown (1966), the Nkrumahist came back to power in 1979 in the Third Republic under banner of President Hilla Limann’s People’s National Party (PNP). The Danquah-Busia tradition, named after two of its stalwarts, Joseph B. Danquah and Kofi A. Busia, stayed in opposition throughout the Nkrumah era. The group assumed power in the Second Republic (1969-1972) under the Progress Party with Busia as Prime Minister.
At the start of the Fourth Republic (1992), a third tradition, the Rawlings tradition in the form of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), had emerged. This group won the 1992 and 1996 elections. The Danquah-Busiaists regrouped in 1992 under the banner of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and contested the 1992 and 1996 elections but only succeeded in capturing power in 2000, a mandate that was renewed in 2004. But the Nkrumahists split into several weak political parties that have persistently controlled less than five percent of parliamentary seats.
1.1: The Problematic
The voting pattern in the 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004 elections brings to the fore a number of issues related to the question of citizenship and identity in contemporary Africa:
· At the national level there has been increasing polarization of the electorate along the dominant (in terms of numbers) Akan-speaking and Non-Akan-speaking divide.
· In the cosmopolitan Greater Accra Region, not only has there been persistent calls on political parties to field indigenous Ga (Accra) candidates, but the regional voting pattern reveals a struggle for power between natives/indigenes and residents/settlers.
· More significant for our purposes here, a number of constituencies with significant settler populations, particularly in the Ashanti and Eastern regions have persistently voted against the regional pattern. Apparently, this is an extension of the increasing parochial politics of settlers and indigenes but they may also represent the protest vote of groups that may define themselves as the victims of long term exclusion.[2]
The most serious threat to Ghana’s fledgling democracy is the fact is that the two dominant political parties in the country, the ruling NPP and the opposition NDC have been associated with two dominant ethnic groups, Ashanti and Ewe respectively. And apparently, electoral issues have been viewed through those lenses with other ethnic groups taking sides along those lines. On the whole, the Akan-speaking regions of Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Central, Eastern and Western have in most cases voted NPP while the non-Akan Volta, Northern, Upper East and Upper West, the NDC.
The choice of the five constituencies for this study– New Edubiase, Ejura Sekyedumase, Fanteakwa, Afram Plains North and South is deliberate. They are all rural with considerable settler components and lie within the ruling NPP strongholds of Ashanti and Eastern regions but they have persistently voted for the NDC. The voting patterns in these five constituencies are instructive of the increasing significance of the settler factor in electoral politics in the Fourth Republic. In the 1969 and 1979 elections, these areas had supported the Danquah-Busiaists, like most other areas in Ashanti and Eastern Regions, but since 1992 the support base has shifted to the emergent Rawlings tradition, the NDC.
Against this background, to what extent does social identity impact on elections? How does the interplay of ethnicity and the indigenous-settler rivalry affect the manner competing candidates and parties attempt to outbid one another? And what implications do they have for democratic consolidation? This work is based on the premise that the settler factor has been the most significant determinant of electoral outcomes in the five constituencies in the Fourth Republic. However, we also accept the general Conflict Analysis thesis that there are usually multiple causes and factors that underlie all kinds of conflicts, violent as well as non-violent. This calls for a systematic study of the history, actors and dynamics of electoral politics in the selected case studies. The study, therefore, delves into issues like the electoral history of the respective constituencies; the depth of indigenous-settler rivalry and its interplay with other factors and electoral strategies of competing parties.
The study involves the following:
1. A review of literature on citizenship, social identities and electoral politics.
2. A sketch of the electoral history of Ghana with special emphasis on the case studies
3. An examination of the population components of the five constituencies in the broader context of the ethnic structure of Ghana.
4. An analysis of the underlying factors and dynamics of electoral behaviour with focus on the indigenous-settler relationship.
5. A review of the electoral campaign strategies of competing parties and electoral outcomes.
6. An outline of the implications for Ghana’s democratic consolidation
1.2: Methodology
This work involved archival research and a field study. There was intense internet and archival searches to beef up the theoretical foundations of the study. The fieldwork entailed informal interviews with the major stakeholders – Members of Parliament (past and present), party executives, District Assembly officials, traditional authorities of both indigenous and settler groups, local media, as well as randomly selected residents within each constituency to sample their views on various aspects of social identity and electoral politics.
The data analysis is largely qualitative and the thematic approach has been adopted for the write-up. There is comparative analysis among the five constituencies and with their respective regions.
1.3: Significance of Study
Issues of citizenship, identity and xenophobia have become important political questions in contemporary Africa in terms of multi-party democracy and the general stability of the continent. In the Ghanaian context, it is apparent that the expansion of the democratic space has led to intense ethnicization of electoral politics, which in turn, threatens the very foundations of the democratic process. This work then focuses on one aspect of the impact of ethnicity on democracy. The outcome of this study therefore, apart from being academically educative, serves as a useful basis for policy dialogue and advocacy for reform. Lessons learnt can strengthen the participation of minorities, settlers and other marginalized groups in the effort to influence policy through elections (Hughes 2005).
2.0: CITIZENSHIP, SOCIAL IDENTITY AND ELECTORAL POLITICS: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
The study has its theoretical underpinnings in citizenship, social identity and electoral politics. Citizenship, according to J. M. Barbalet, defines the members (and implicitly non-members) of a common society. It directly addresses the rights and obligations involved in the relationship between the individual and the community and the ways the relationship impacts political participation. Citizenship reflects a set of expectations that the community and its members have of one another.[3] On his part, Said Adejumobi says “citizenship in its ordinary usage is about the rights, benefits, privileges and duties of an individual as a member of a political community, usually the state”.[4] To him, citizenship is an instrument of political exclusion and social closure through which a state seeks to create a common identity for itself and denies such to others. In the context of the nation-state, citizenship is about creating a convergence of diversity of ethnic, religious, political spatial and social differences by ensuring a regime of equal rights, privileges and obligation as the bound of national identity[5]. Ultimately citizenship relates to the broader issues of democracy, rule of law, social justice, equity, and fairness in the management of state affairs. It relates to the social character of state construction on how the state will benefit not just a group, a few or social class but will distribute its social values in a way to alleviate fears and insecurity by individuals and groups in the political community.[6] That is why when a social group is thoroughly marginalized and its social existence threatened in a political context it may resort to arms to fight for citizenship rights or mainstream itself into the political process.[7]
The political liberalization process from the early 1990s has provided a new framework for the articulation of this relationship between citizenship and identity. The advent of multiparty democracy in Africa has heightened the political significance of this game of distinguishing “citizens” from “non-citizens”, which is often played to the advantage of the indigene. Perhaps the unintended impact of this (and crucial for our purposes here) is the fact that such discourses and actions tend to arouse the identity consciousness of settler or migrant communities. Where the settler community forms a significant proportion of the population, it could, by bloc voting, become the ‘king-makers’ in elections. Equally, the deepening of poverty, social inequalities and declining social welfare under globalization, especially in developing countries, has pushed many individuals into sectarian identities, reinforce their potency in society and made them alternative sites of political struggles fuelling tension and conflict in many countries.[8]
The situation in Ghana is not different from other parts of Africa where the return to multiparty electoral politics has heightened ethnic identity, particularly its differences. Increasingly, since the return to democratic rule in 1992, ethnic groups are fighting for their own place in government and share of the “national cake”. And since electoral success depends on numbers, political parties in Ghana have tended to appeal to difference ethnic groups to be able to rule. On the other hand, ethnic groups have tended to identify themselves with parties they think will protect their interest.
In the localities, there is usually a clear distinction between the ‘natives’ or ‘indigenes’ of those areas who are considered as the ‘local citizens’ and the ‘immigrants’ or ‘settlers’ who are considered as ‘non-citizens’, in spite of the fact that they are all nationals of the same country.[9] Interestingly, ‘settlers’ and ‘natives’ belong together; we cannot have one without the other, for it is the relationship between them that makes one a settler and the other a native.[10]
In general, indigenes exhibit negative attitudes towards settlers. Settlers are often socially resented, given negative stereotypes, and sometimes threatened, openly or veiled. UNDP (2000) confirms this view that settlers, like other minority groups, are often discriminated against in a number of ways. These include regulations and actions that target the migrant group, imposition of social practices of the indigenes, economic exploitation and threats of, actual, or forced re-location. Competition and a sense of insecurity, therefore, become important factors in inter-group relations; accentuating group differences, and hardening attitudes and creating a vicious cycle of prejudice and discrimination.[11]
The conventional wisdom therefore is that settler communities are at a disadvantage. In the context of Ghana’s Fourth Republic, however, it is apparent that settlers are increasingly turning their initial disadvantage into electoral brinksmanship. Particularly, the rural folks have come to realize that sticking together could enhance their political influence.
A number of factors have proved favourable to the settlers in this context. Increasingly the demography has changed over the years in favour of the settlers. The often better-educated indigenes move out to the urban centres to take up jobs and do not return to register and vote back home. The net effect is that settler-voters most of whom may be farmers may outnumber the indigenes. But the settlers need not be dominant in absolute terms (or be in a majority) to make electoral impact. Conscious of their social identity and disadvantageous circumstances, settlers are often more likely to vote together in support of the party they perceive can protect their interests. Indeed, to them mobilization of communal identity becomes the driving force to make their claims heard.[12] In the case of the five constituencies in our study, it has become fashionable for the two dominant parties, NPP and NDC, to court the settler votes and in a sense, the settler groups have achieved greater voice through the electoral channel.
More significantly, this potential strength of settler communities tends to impact on the campaign style and message of candidates and parties during elections. Dickson and Scheve intimate that social identity can be an important factor in motivating behavior.[13] And if voters care about social identity, politicians find it in their interest to make group-based appeals and social identity concerns affect the platform or campaign manifesto of party candidates. Simply put, social identity has a striking impact on the strategic conduct of election campaigns. Competing candidates must decide not only what policies they would announce but also the level of group rhetoric to employ.[14] And, in the Ghanaian context, the settler factor has affected the choice of candidates as well (Frempong 2001a: 155).[15]
The main thrust of this study then is to examine how this complex web of positive and negative aspects of identity-based electoral politics plays out in the five constituencies.
SECTION 3
THE ETHNIC STRUCTURE AND ELECTORAL POLITICS IN GHANA
In Ghana, it is estimated that there are about ninety ethnic groups, but these are often reduced to a few large groups. According to the 2000 census data, the prominent groups are the Akan (49.1%), the Mole Dagbani (16.5%), the Ewe (12.7%), the Ga-Adangbe (8.0%), the Guan (4.4%), the Gurma (3.9%), the Grusi (2.8%), and the Mande–Busanga (1.1%) (Ghana Statistical Services, 2002).
While these broad groups are seemingly culturally and linguistically homogeneous, variations exist among them and their geographical spread further complicates to the extent that it is sometimes difficult to say whether ethnicity or regionalism is at play (Frempong 2001: 143-144). To illustrate:
· Akan is a potpourri of about a dozen smaller ethnic groups spread across five regions of the country.[16] Significant among the Akans (for our purposes here) are Asante[17], Akyem[18] and Kwahu.[19] Each of these groups has developed its own territorial identity, political consciousness and dialect and they have their petty jealousies to the extent that it has often been difficult to have the Akans voting en bloc.