How do democracies deal with political polarisation?
Political scientists advise democracies to manage political polarisation through institutional safeguards, including independent judiciaries, parliamentary rules requiring compromise, and electoral systems that encourage broad consensus rather than winner-take-all outcomes.
Effective strategies are said to include encouraging bipartisan policymaking, reinforcing civic education on democratic norms, regulating media to prevent echo chambers, and ensuring politicians focus on long-term governance rather than immediate, inflammatory base-mobilisation.
Ghana is a rare phenomenon in Africa: a stable electoral democracy.
At the same time, Ghana’s intense political polarisation may pose a serious threat to the country’s democratic status.
Political polarisation drives challenges such as electoral violence, ‘winner-takes-all’ politics, and erosion of trust in public institutions.
Overall, intense partisanship, exacerbated by regional and ethnic divides and rivalries, leads to legislative gridlock and heightened tensions around elections, threatening to undermine not only democracy but also national stability and security.
NDC versus NPP
During the Fourth Republic, Ghana has been politically polarised between the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP). Many of the supporters of each party are dyed-in-the-wool followers and the opposing party and their supporters are not only rivals for power but also political enemies.
Such intense political polarisation significantly undermines democratic accountability by fostering patronage over policy, creates ‘us-versus-them’ dynamics, erodes trust in independent institutions, and shifts voter focus from holding leaders accountable to securing personal benefits.
Historical context
Political polarisation is not a new phenomenon in Ghana; it did not begin with the return to democracy in the Fourth Republic.
From independence in 1957, intense political polarisation has been a recurring feature of the country’s politics, although over time its nature has evolved. Early post-colonial politics was marked by sharp, sometimes violent, divisions between the then-dominant Convention Peoples Party and the United Party (UP).
The UP, formed in October 1957 by a merger of several regional and ideological opposition groups, was effectively dissolved in 1964 when the government of Kwame Nkrumah banned political parties to establish a one-party state.
Nkrumah wanted to consolidate his power, enforce national unity, and eliminate threats to his rule amid assassination attempts.
By amending the constitution and declaring himself President for Life, Nkrumah sought to expedite socialist development and curb internal opposition, which he felt was preventing the development of a cohesive, post-colonial, independent nation.
Nkrumah’s objective of a one-party state practising socialism was overturned in the February 1966 military coup. Nevertheless, ideological polarisation continued, a prominent feature of the post-colonial period, later evolving into a stable, two-party system dominated alternately by the NDC and NPP, with very high affective polarisation and winner-takes-all dynamics.
Threat to democracy
The two main parties do not approach politics and national development consensually. Instead, the politics of polarisation dictates that if one party proclaims something is good, the other immediately pronounces it bad.
This is not necessarily because such a policy is in fact unsuitable, wrong or misguided. It is simply because the opposition thought of it first.
Only with Ghana’s long-running neoliberal economic policy, in place since the early 1980s, can we see – tacit – agreement between the two main parties over the preferred way forward.
This is largely because Ghana’s economic progress has long been dependent on extensive foreign loans from the International Monetary Fund, and to rock the boat on this issue, both NDC and NPP agree, would be bad news for the parties and for Ghanaians more generally.
Political polarisation on this issue is thus removed due to the parties’ sense of self-interest.
While political polarisation is very much the status quo, it comes with significant costs, which undermine democracy in several ways.
First, there is the power of patronage politics.
This is where voters see elections as opportunities for personal gains (jobs, favours) rather than evaluating performance, which encourages politicians to distribute resources to loyalists rather than for the public good.
Second, independent institutions, including the Electoral Commission and the judiciary, may be attacked by opposing sides to undermine their credibility, which reduces public confidence in national institutions.
Third, polarisation enables ruling parties to shield corrupt members from accountability to protect party reputation.
Fourth, media landscape polarisation makes a neutral assessment of government performance difficult to achieve, with public debates often reduced to party, ethnic or religious loyalty not principles.
Finally, the binary, almost irresistible, nature of political affiliation means officials are often re-elected based on party loyalty rather than effectiveness, which lowers governance standards.
What is to be done?
The long-running, embedded environment of pernicious political polarisation leads to a situation where the country’s democratic institutions are questioned, where leaders’ accountability is difficult to enforce, where finding competent rulers is problematic, and where national development is sacrificed for political exigency.
Identifying the problem is one thing; what to do about it is another.
The writer is an Emeritus Professor of Politics, London Metropolitan University, UK.
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh