Non-partisan on paper: How Ghana’s MMDCE reform could still hand every district to one party

For three decades, Ghanaians have grumbled about a District Chief Executive appointed by the President, with no accountability to anyone else. The Constitutional Review Committee, led by Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh, aimed to rectify this. Their report proposed amending Article 243 of the Constitution to directly elect Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Chief Executives on a non-partisan basis, overseen by an independent Devolution Commission.

The Cabinet endorsed the concept, and a bill is expected before Parliament by year-end. A survey by the Institute of Economic Affairs found that nearly seven in ten Ghanaians support this reform. However, consensus has proven elusive. Recently, Professor Prempeh has criticized the government's stance on the reform, questioning why the government should select three candidates for voters to choose from.

Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah, a former Local Government Minister, has gone further, asserting that the proposed arrangement amounts to the same thing it claims to replace. The dispute lies not in the idea of electing MMDCEs but in the specifics of how a "non-partisan" election will actually function, and this is where the "one-party state" warning is emanating from.

The mechanism behind this warning hinges on the proposal that political authorities would shortlist five candidates, from whom three would compete on the ballot. If this process is controlled by government or party-backed structures, the "non-partisan" label may be misleading, as the ballot voters see has already been shaped by partisan forces before a single vote is cast.

This scenario mirrors the government-controlled appointment system of Ghana's one-party era, rather than the grassroots democracy it aims to replace. The concern is not hypothetical but rooted in the practical realities of incumbency, state resources, and local party machinery that could decide who runs in Ghana's 261 districts.

While the "non-partisan" label appears on the ballot paper, it fails to address the underlying issues that maintain party dominance in local governance. Professor Prempeh's committee recognized this and recommended an independent Devolution Commission to oversee the election process, but the government's current plan to use a five-nominate-three-shortlist model circumvents this safeguard.

To ensure the reform's effectiveness, three critical factors must be scrutinized: who conducts the nominating process, the transparency of the selection, and whether the phased rollout becomes a vehicle for political advantage. These points are crucial in determining whether the reform is genuine or merely cosmetic. This isn't an argument against MMDCEs being elected; the accountability benefits and public demand for such an election are compelling.

However, significant scrutiny is warranted to ensure the reform delivers what it promises, rather than replicating the same issues it seeks to correct. Ghana has experienced this scenario before: a popular constitutional concept with broad support, but implementation details that undermine its intended goals. The key question before this bill reaches Parliament is not whether MMDCEs should be elected, but who will decide which candidates are presented to the electorate and whether this process deviates from the reform's alleged departure from the existing system.