History

Nkrumah’s administration, the 1966 coup, and the return to civilian rule

Nkrumah saw independent Ghana as a spearhead for the liberation of the rest of Africa from colonial rule and the establishment of a socialist African unity under his leadership. After the founding of a republic in 1960, the state became identified with a single political party (the CPP), with Nkrumah, as life president of both, taking ever more power for himself. On the Pan-African front Nkrumah’s messianism was increasingly challenged by other leaders of an ever-growing number of independent states. By 1966 his dream of African socialism was foundering under haphazard and corrupt administration, massive foreign debts, and declining living standards. In February, while Nkrumah was in Beijing, army and police leaders rose against him, and his regime was replaced by a National Liberation Council chaired by Lieut. Gen. Joseph A. Ankrah. The machinery of government was overhauled and conservative financial policies introduced. But Ankrah failed to redeem a promise to restore parliamentary democracy, and in 1969 he gave way to the dynamic young brigadier Akwasi Amankwaa Afrifa, a principal leader of the coup. A constituent assembly produced a constitution for a second republic, and a general election was held in August 1969. This resulted in a substantial victory for the Progress Party, led by Kofi Busia, a university professor who had consistently opposed Nkrumah. Busia became prime minister, and a year later a former chief justice, Edward Akufo-Addo, was chosen president.

Series of coups

But the civilian regime, handicapped by the great burden of foreign debt it had inherited and the low prices then obtained by cocoa on the world market, was slow to produce the results expected of it. In January 1972 impatient army officers intervened again, and the government was taken over by a National Redemption Council (NRC) of military men chaired by Col. Ignatius Kutu Acheampong. The national assembly was dissolved, public meetings prohibited, political parties proscribed, and leading politicians imprisoned. In July 1972 a retroactive Subversion Decree was enacted under which military courts were empowered to impose the death penalty for offenses such as subversive political activity, robbery, theft, and damaging public property, and, from 1973, for the spreading of rumors and profiteering. The military regime was clearly failing to maintain good order or anything approaching a prosperous or stable economy. Ghana’s gross domestic product, export earnings, and living standards began a precipitous decline.

In 1975 the NRC was reorganized to include some civilians, but ultimate power was given to a Supreme Military Council (SMC). In 1977 the SMC proposed a “Union Government to which everybody will belong,” with no political parties and the military sharing in government with civilians. But a national referendum held to approve this served mainly to show the unpopularity of the SMC. Acheampong was replaced as SMC chairman by Lieut. Gen. Frederick W.K. Akuffo, who was less effective in governing than his predecessor. Eventually, in 1979, as the economy floundered, the government of the generals was overthrown by young officers and noncommissioned officers, led by an air force flight lieutenant, Jerry Rawlings. Acheampong and Akuffo were executed, and a quick return to parliamentary government was organized. But under Pres. Hilla Limann this failed to produce the radical improvements in the political and economic life of Ghana sought by Rawlings and his colleagues. At the end of 1981, Rawlings decided that he and those who thought like him must take the lead in all walks of life, and he again overthrew the government. His second military coup established a Provisional National Defense Council as the supreme national government; at local levels, people’s defense committees were to take the campaign for national renewal down to the grass roots.

Initially, older Ghanaians doubted that Rawlings and his colleagues could provide more effective and less self-interested government than the old politicians or generals, while other young soldiers thought that they could themselves engineer coups to secure the fruits of power. But Rawlings easily snuffed out two countercoups in 1982 and 1983, and it was apparent that there was wide and genuine approval of his purpose of reforming Ghana’s political and economic life. This continued even when he decided that there was no alternative but to follow conservative economic policies—such as dropping subsidies and price controls in order to reduce inflation, privatizing many state-owned companies, and devaluing currency in order to stimulate exports—that would secure International Monetary Fund (IMF) support and other foreign aid. These free-market measures revived Ghana’s economy, which by the early 1990s had one of the highest growth rates in Africa.

Democratic stability

In 1992, in the first presidential balloting held in Ghana since 1979, Rawlings—representing a new party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC)—was elected president. He was reelected to a second term in 1996 with almost three-fifths of the vote. Despite the economic progress that had been made during Rawlings’s rule, much of the Ghanaian press and many Ghanaian professionals remained highly critical of his economic policies and authoritarian political style.

Rawlings stepped down from the presidency in early 2001 and was succeeded by John Agyekum Kufuor of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the first peaceful transfer of power between democratically elected governments since Ghanaian independence in 1957; Kufuor was reelected in 2004.

In the December 2008 presidential elections, the NPP’s candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, won the first round of voting but did not secure a majority of the vote. John Evans Atta Mills of the NDC went on to narrowly defeat Akufo-Addo by less than one percentage point in a runoff election fraught with tension. Still, there was a peaceful transfer of power, which was heralded by many observers as proof of Ghana’s democratic stability.

Mahama’s ascent to the presidency and the 2012 election

Mills died in office on July 24, 2012, near the end of his term. Vice Pres. John Dramani Mahama was sworn in as interim president later that day. He later was selected to be the NDC’s presidential candidate in the December 7, 2012, election. Mahama faced seven other candidates, including Akufo-Addo, who again represented the NPP. The electoral commission declared that Mahama was the winner with 50.7 percent of the vote—just enough to avoid having a runoff election with Akufo-Addo, who trailed him with 47.74 percent. Before the results were released, however, the NPP had already made allegations of electoral fraud. After the electoral commission declared Mahama the winner, the NPP filed a petition with the Supreme Court to challenge the results. The court’s verdict, issued on August 29, 2013, dismissed the NPP’s petition and upheld Mahama’s victory; Akufo-Addo accepted the outcome. Meanwhile, Mahama had been sworn in for his first full term as president earlier that year, on January 7.

Mahama presided over a period of growing discontent caused by a weakening economy—partly due to declining prices on Ghana’s main exports and growing public wage costs—as well as power shortages and corruption scandals. To address the country’s economic problems, in 2015 the government received a financial assistance package from the IMF to support economic reform.

2015 judicial corruption scandal

One of the scandals that rocked the country broke in 2015 when a journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, released the results of his two-year investigation into corruption in Ghana’s judicial system. Some 180 judges, magistrates, and other judicial officials were caught on video demanding money from litigants and accepting bribes. Subsequent investigations by the country’s Judicial Council resulted in the dismissal of dozens of the accused, including some High Court judges.

2016 election

The economy and corruption were two of the main themes during the campaign for the 2016 presidential election. The December 7 poll saw a rematch between Mahama, representing the NDC, and Akufo-Addo, representing the NPP; they were the leading candidates of a field of seven that also included former first lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, representing the National Democratic Party (NDP). Akufo-Addo was declared the winner with almost 54 percent of the vote; Mahama, who followed him with about 44 percent, conceded. Akufo-Addo was inaugurated on January 7, 2017.

Akufo-Addo’s administration

Akufo-Addo’s administration began to follow up on several of his campaign pledges, such as providing free senior secondary education, which was implemented in September 2017. A special prosecutor dedicated to rooting out corruption was appointed in 2018, although he resigned in 2020, citing political interference. A program to boost the economy by getting at least one factory in each of the country’s more than 200 districts was also launched in 2017. Economic growth was strong a year into Akufo-Addo’s term, but progress was halted in 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted various sectors of the economy, notably with lower global prices on important exports such as oil and cocoa.

2020 elections

It was against this backdrop that the presidential election was held on December 7. Akufo-Addo faced Mahama again as well as 10 other candidates. Akufo-Addo was reelected in the first round of voting, securing a little more than 51 percent, while Mahama, his nearest challenger, received slightly more than 47 percent. In parliamentary elections held the same day, Akufo-Addo’s NPP and Mahama’s NDC each won 137 seats, with 1 seat being won by an independent. The resulting hung parliament had the potential to slow or impede implementation of Akufo-Addo’s policies and agenda. On December 30, 2020, Mahama filed a challenge to the results of the presidential election with the Supreme Court, alleging that irregularities affected the election outcome and asking for the results to be overturned. While the case was pending, Akufo-Addo was sworn in for his second term on January 7, 2021. On March 4 the Supreme Court rejected Mahama’s challenge, citing a lack of evidence to support his claims, and upheld the results of the election.

Akufo-Addo’s second term and the 2024 elections

As financial fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic continued, Ghana’s economy was negatively impacted by other factors, including a rise in commodity prices because of the disruption caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The government took action to stabilize the economy, but it was not enough to prevent what was deemed the country’s worst economic crisis in a generation. In 2022 the country defaulted on its external debt, and it obtained a bailout from the IMF the next year. Unemployment also rose during Akufo-Addo’s second term, especially among young adults. Discontent with the state of the economy figured prominently as the 2024 elections approached.

Another widespread concern in the run-up to the elections was the illegal gold-mining process known as galamsey (a contraction of gather and sell or gather them and sell). Although galamsey was not a new practice, it had become more widespread in recent years and led to a multitude of problems for the country, such as damaging the environment and endangering the health of the population, as well as lost revenue for the government, as much of the gold from galamsey was smuggled out of Ghana. The expansion of galamsey operations resulted in a reduction in forest cover and arable land for agricultural purposes—including land used for cacao cultivation, which threatened the economically important cocoa industry. To aid in the extraction of gold, galamsey miners used toxic chemicals such as mercury and cyanide, which contaminated soil and bodies of water; in 2024 it was reported that more than 60 percent of Ghana’s water sources were polluted with mercury and heavy metals. The uproar over galamsey, particularly its detrimental impact on water supplies, led Ghanaians to demonstrate and call for stronger measures to counter the practice.

The next elections were held on December 7, 2024, and 12 candidates faced off in the presidential race. With Akufo-Addo constitutionally barred from standing for a third term, the NPP selected his vice president, Mahamudu Bawumia, to represent the party; he and Mahama, who was once again the flag bearer for the NDC, were the front-runners. Mahama was declared the winner, with more than 56 percent of the vote; his nearest competitor was Bawumia, who won more than 41 percent. In the parliamentary elections the NDC won 183 seats, giving it a majority, while the NPP saw its share in the body decrease to 88 seats. Mahama was inaugurated on January 7, 2025. His running mate, Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, was also sworn in that day, becoming the first woman vice president of Ghana.

Mahama’s return to the presidency

Mahama soon set to work on fulfilling his campaign pledges, which included convening a national education forum in February and a national economic dialogue in March to strategize solutions to the challenges faced in both sectors. He also acted on another pledge at the heart of the NDC’s plan to tackle the country’s economic crisis: shifting Ghana to a 24-hour economy. Moving toward this economic model was intended to create more jobs and increase production across all economic sectors, as well as reduce the country’s reliance on imported commodities. Though the government acknowledged that achieving a 24-hour economy was a long-term goal—it would take years to build the infrastructure and implement the policies and related plans necessary to support a round-the-clock economy—the program was officially launched in July 2025. Ghana’s port facilities were among the first businesses to expand their operations to run 24 hours a day.