Ghana leads African democracies, but faces challenges – Prof Diamond

Ghana is among the top four countries in Africa practising democracy, according to a report by Prof. Larry Diamond, a Democracy Scholar at Hoover Institute and Stanford University.

The report indicates that Ghana leads all African countries in terms of democracy with a score of 78%, followed by Botswana with 58%, Mauritius in third place with 52%, and South Africa in fourth position with 43%.

In an interview on The Point of View on Citi TV about Africa’s best democracies, Prof. Diamond said, “Well the ones I think people would cite are the two oldest, Mauritius and Botswana, and the two main liberal democracies of any significant size are South Africa and Ghana.”

While acknowledging the democratic progress made by these countries, he expressed concern over the gradual decline in the practice of democracy in these nations.

Prof. Diamond attributed the decline of democracy in these countries to perceived corruption, poor governance, and ensuing political unrest.

“But each of the four is showing some significant erosion, both in popular evaluation of how democracy is doing in each of these four countries. And concerns about the government’s performance, corruption and so on.

“And so, this is part of concerns, you look at the four kinds of longest standing most liberal democracies in Africa including Ghana, they are not doing as well in the public evaluation,” Prof. Larry Diamond stated.

He affirmed that electoral observers have faith in Ghana’s electoral process.

“I think most of the observers have confidence in the electoral administration. And they believe Ghana will emerge from the selection secured in a status of vigorous electoral democracy in which elections were free and fair and whoever got the most votes was elected president.”

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