Paper long abstract:

Elections are the central institution of liberal democracy, translating the idea of democracy into practice. They are essentially about choosing a set of elites for political leadership. Yet the process of elections is in itself a key event, legitimizing the authority of those who will govern. Elections must be seen as free and fair, in order for those elected to rule with legitimate authority. Therefore, elections always contain both an element of spectacle and element of democracy. It is the relative weight of the two elements that is important. A way of getting at that relative weight is to ask on what basis do people vote, how do they choose among elites contesting for office?

Since 1992 Ghanaian elections have increasingly been conducted in a free and fair manner, culminating in a near perfect performance in 2004. Using the case of Ghana, this paper asks the following questions:

(1) To what extent are elections in Ghana spectacles, performed to produce the legitimacy of the government and the ruling elite and empty of meaningful political choice?

(2) To what extent are elections institutions through which people choose political elites to represent their interests and through which they try to hold their leaders accountable for their actions?

(3) To what extent do elections serve some other purpose?

The first part of the paper assesses what the secondary literature tells us about the historical basis of electoral choice in Ghana, particularly through studies of local politics and elections. The second part of the paper draws on primary research carried out by the author during the November 2004 national elections in Ghana. Focusing on one electoral constituency in the Northern Region, it considers the electoral process as spectacle and as democracy (concentrating on the why people vote the way they do). The third part of the paper draws out change and continuity in past and present electoral experiences. It concludes by offering answers to the questions posed above.