Resurgence of multi-party rule in Ghana, 1990-2004 a historical review

Abstract

Ghana's political history since independence was full of "cases of alternations between authoritarianism and democracy"1. Democratic experiments in 1969 and 1979 were truncated by military takeovers making Ghana's political history a chequered one. It was against this background that many people were apprehensive about the re-introduction of democratic rule in 1992. But as things turned out the Fourth Republic of Ghana stood out clearly as a true democratic transition in Ghana. For one thing, it marked a remarkable departure from the incidence of coups and counter coups that punctuated the political history of Ghana in the immediate post- independence period. It was also significant because it marked the transition from a long period of military rule and dictatorship to democracy. Most significantly, the period witnessed a historic transfer of power from one democratically elected government to another. In the light of this some people refer fondly to the Fourth Republic as the 'second independence of Ghana This paper takes a historical view of Ghana's transition to multi-party democracy from 1990 to 2004.