Discover Ghana : Current issues

The current Ghanaian political scene

Here is a summary of the players on the Ghanaian political scene. Five main parties hold the public's attention, the first two being the majority parties:

The National Democratic Congress (NDC). This center-left party was founded by Jerry Rawlings in 1992. Although elected president twice (1992-2000), the NDC remained an opposition party for many years. Represented by two presidents (first Atta Mills, then John Dramani Mahama), the party regained power in 2008 and held it until December 2016. In December 2024, John Dramani Mahama was again elected president.

National Patriotic Party (NPP). This is the party of the strongman of the early ^21st century, John Kufuor. Center-right and essentially made up of Ashanti businessmen, during Kufuor's two terms in office (2000-2008), the party adapted its political horizon to cater for those left behind by economic growth. The NDC won the next two mandates, then, basing his campaign on the slowing economy, Nana Akufo-Ado won the elections in 2016 and again in 2020.

Conventional People Party (CPP). Founded by Kwame Nkrumah, this party is now a shadow of its former self. George Aggudey, the party's former leader, fought long and hard to revive young people's faith in a communist or socialist system, to no avail.

People National Convention (PNC). Founded by a dissident faction of the CPP, this popular party is an emanation of the northern part of the country, with no real political representation on a national scale.

Ghana Union Movement (GUM). Created in 2019, this is Ghana's youngest party. Christian Kwabena Andrews, at its head, presents himself as "the new Kwame Nkrumah" and has received the support of the father of the nation's daughter, Samia Nkrumah. In the 2020 elections, the party came^3rd, albeit with 0.99% of the vote, but^3rd nonetheless.

A vibrant West African democracy

Since 1992, with the end of an authoritarian military regime and the transition to democracy led by Jerry Rawlings, Ghana's multiparty system seems to be doing rather well. That same year, both the adoption of a new Constitution and the elections took place in a most peaceful climate. From then on - and international observers agree on this - Ghana's state functioning was considered stable and even an African example in terms of pacifism and political dynamism. After Rawlings' two terms in office, the country's two main parties alternated perfectly: two terms in office for the NPP (2000-2008), then two more terms in office for the NDC (2008-2016), then two more terms in office for the NPP (2016-2024). Since 2024, the NDC has once again been in power.

In his re-election in 2020, Nana Dankwa Akufo-Addo won by a narrow margin over former president John Dramani Mahama (2012-2016). Interestingly, in the parliamentary elections of December 2020, which followed the presidential elections, the number of NPP MPs equaled that of NDC MPs, forcing the two parties to debate and seek common solutions. In the 2024 presidential campaign, with Nana Dankwa Akufo-Addo ineligible due to the constitution limiting presidents to a maximum of two successive terms, the NPP proposed Mahamudu Bawumia as its candidate. On December 7, 2024, the opposition, led by John Mahama (NDC), won the first round of elections.

An external mediation policy

Benefiting from the legacy of Kwame Nkrumah, one of the main initiators of pan-Africanism in the 1950s, Ghana has a certain political weight within the African Union (it held the presidency in 2007). Over the past quarter-century, Ghana has been militarily involved in numerous peacekeeping operations in West Africa, as well as in Lebanon. As far back as the 1990s, Jerry Rawlings did not hesitate to support peace efforts by sending soldiers to reinforce the UN's blue-helmeted troops, in particular in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Considered a key mediator in West Africa, Ghana received more than 10,000 refugees from its neighboring country on its territory following the Ivorian political crisis of 2003-2004. Again, in 2017-2018, Akufo-Addo's Ghana assumed the role of facilitator in the Togo crisis. Then, from summer 2020 to summer 2022, Ghana chaired the ECOWAS Conference of Heads of State and Government, which was grappling with coups d'état in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso, calling for the restoration of civilian rule. Security problems, heightened by the political destabilization of these countries, are one of Ghana's main foreign policy challenges. Although it has so far been spared terrorist attacks, the country cannot ignore the expansion of Sahelian terrorist groups from Burkina Faso.

Internationally, Ghana enjoys a positive image, reinforced by the visit of Barack Obama in 2009, the first African country to be visited by an American president after taking office. From January^1, 2022 to December 31, 2023, Ghana will sit on the United Nations Security Council, working with other members to promote international peace and security. Finally, the stability of Ghana has not escaped the attention of French President Emmanuel Macron. During an unprecedented visit by a French President in November 2017, he stressed the importance of going beyond the old "Anglophone Africa-Francophone Africa" schemas.

Tourism in Ghana

For a long time, tourism was not a sector of particular interest to the Ghanaian authorities - the country's main focus was on cocoa and mining resources - but in recent years, efforts have been made in this direction, both for vacation and business travellers. While Ghana's hotel stock is more than adequate compared to that of Togo or Benin, the country has also benefited from aid from international institutions to rehabilitate its historical heritage. This aid has enabled the rehabilitation of castles and coastal forts (Elmina and Cape Coast in particular), as well as the opening of museums and the development of natural parks. And these efforts have paid off! In 2015, almost 900,000 tourists visited Ghana, making it the^5th most-visited country in West Africa. The tourism industry has enjoyed a major boom over the past 15 years, alas held back, like the rest of the world, by the Covid-19 pandemic that swept the globe in 2020. That same year, Ghana still managed to generate more than 165 million euros from the tourism sector alone, i.e. 0.25% of its GDP, but almost 20% of all tourism revenues in West Africa. Four years later, the situation had improved considerably, with the country's historic tourism sector reaching an all-time record: no fewer than 1.29 million foreign visitors visited the country, generating sales of $4.8 billion!

How much room for improvement is there in Ghana's tourism sector? Certainly promising prospects, focusing on eco-tourism (possibly luxury), active tourism (hiking, biking and surfing), but also on cultural tourism centered on the country's artisanal, artistic and spiritual heritage.

An economy in crisis

While Ghana's economic growth is generally dynamic, the Covid-19 epidemic has put a serious brake on it, with only 0.4% growth in 2020. Growth picked up again in 2021 (4.7% of GDP), then weakened in 2022 (3.4% of GDP) and 2023 (3.1% of GDP). This slowdown can be explained by rising inflation and a crisis in public finances, a sector that has deteriorated in the wake of the pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Inflation is affecting imported products (consumer goods and fuel in particular), on which Ghana is highly dependent. Although inflation has always been high in Ghana (around 10% in the 2000s), it reached record peaks in December 2022: +60% on food prices! At the same time, the level of the national currency, the Cédi, has continued to fall against the dollar. In order to redress the balance, the Ghanaian government had to ask the IMF for a $3 billion bailout in December 2022. As a result, public debt reached 85% of GDP, a "high risk of debt distress" for the IMF. The Ghanaian authorities pledged to take measures to restructure public debt as quickly as possible. Alas, on January 18, 2023, Ghana, just after Zambia, became the second African country since the beginning of the Covid-19 era to default on its debt.

Until the summer of 2024, no solution had been put forward by the Ghanaian authorities to overcome this default. This is a major impediment to the country's development, as poverty looms, with over 30% of the population officially living in poverty. A figure that is not going down. So, one of Ghana's economic and social challenges is certainly to reduce this situation, by implementing a more appropriate policy geared towards supporting growth, public spending aimed at the most disadvantaged, and the implementation of sustainable programs in education, health and infrastructure development. In the summer of 2024, Ghana reached an agreement with its creditors (France and China) to repay its foreign debt ($5.4 billion). An agreement welcomed by the IMF Managing Director. In 2024, Ghana's growth picked up again (5.7% of GDP), but by 2025, inflation, although lower than in previous years, was still undermining the country's economy.