Democratizing the Party: The Effects of Primary Election Reforms in Ghana

Abstract

The recent expansion of the primary electorate by one of Ghana's major parties offers a rare opportunity to assess the effects of franchise extensions in contemporary new democracies. Using an original dataset on candidate entry and nominations, this article shows that expanding the primary electorate opened paths to office for politicians from social groups that were previously excluded, such as women and ethnic groups outside the party's core national coalition. The authors propose that democratizing candidate selection has two consequences in patronage-oriented political systems: vote buying will become a less effective strategy and the electorate will become more diverse. These changes, in turn, affect the types of politicians who seek and win legislative nominations. This suggests that a simple shift in who votes in intraparty primaries can be a key institutional mechanism for improving the descriptive representation of women and other under-represented groups.

Paying to party: Candidate resources and party switching in new democracies

“…Such opaque selection processes can ramp up the costs for those seeking a party’s nomination, as each potential candidate attempts to outbid the others either through payments to whomever is involved in candidate selection (e.g., bribing committee members) or by visibly demonstrating their capacity to mobilize resources for a campaign. In Ghana, for example, Ichino and Nathan (2016) estimate that candidates spend close to $75,000 to secure a party nomination through gifts that range from school fees to motorbikes—all before the actual campaign even begins.…”

We would rather be leaders than parliamentarians: women and political office in Ghana

“…The political parties themselves have recognised the 'cost of politics' in Ghana as a problem, and at least one of them attempted to ameliorate the situation in the 2016 election (Ichino and Nathan, 2016). In the primary elections leading up to the 2016 election, the NDC expanded its electoral college on the assumption, among others things, that this would encourage aspirants to sell their message to voters instead of buying the support of delegates because it would be impossible to buy all the votes of an expanded electoral college.…”

Funding demands and gender in political recruitment: What parties do in Cabo Verde and Ghana

“…More than a few, however, including some male NDC aspirants, felt the opening just made the primaries even more expensive – like running two general elections. Some male and female aspirants and candidates from both NDC and NPP felt that the opening up of the NDC primaries was beneficial to women and, indeed, Ichino and Nathan (2021) have documented just that – that more women and other marginalized (especially ethnic) groups emerged from the NDC primaries in 2015 than in the past – although, in the end, with the significant NPP victory, fewer of those NDC women survived the general election. For the 2019 party primaries, NDC reverted to the previous reliance upon delegates only for selecting its general election parliamentary candidates.…”