Ghana-Net.com · History & Politics · 1992 to today
Ghana had three republics before this one, and soldiers ended all of them. The fourth began on 7 January 1993 under a constitution written while a military ruler was still in charge, and it has now lasted longer than the first three put together. Nine presidential elections, three changes of party by the ballot, two presidential election petitions in the Supreme Court, one president who died in office, one hung parliament and one removed Chief Justice. This is the record, including the parts the celebrations leave out.
The First Republic of Kwame Nkrumah began in 1960 and ended with the coup of February 1966. The Second Republic of Kofi Busia lasted from 1969 to January 1972. The Third Republic of Hilla Limann lasted barely two years, from September 1979 until Jerry Rawlings took power for the second time on 31 December 1981.
What followed was eleven years of the Provisional National Defence Council, the PNDC: no parties, no parliament, public tribunals, and in June 1982 the abduction and murder of three High Court judges and a retired army officer. The full story of these years is on our page on Ghana's coups, 1966–1983.
Why the PNDC gave way: by 1990 the Cold War was over, donors were tying aid to political reform, and pressure at home was growing from lawyers, churches, students and the Movement for Freedom and Justice. Rawlings chose to manage the return to civilian rule rather than be swept aside by it, and he stood in the first election himself.
A Committee of Experts drafted proposals in 1991, and a Consultative Assembly, many of whose members were appointed by or close to the regime, turned them into a constitution. On 28 April 1992 it was put to a referendum and approved by about 92 per cent of those who voted, on a turnout of well under half the register. It came into force on 7 January 1993, the date every Fourth Republic president has since been sworn in.
Every celebration of the 1992 Constitution skips one part of it. The transitional provisions grant indemnity to the members of the two military governments of Rawlings, the AFRC of 1979 and the PNDC of 1982 to 1992, and to their appointees, for acts done in their name. No court may question them. The constitution that brought back elections also closed the door on prosecuting what had been done before them.
What this meant in practice: the families of the executed generals of 1979, of the three murdered judges and of people who disappeared under the PNDC had no legal route beyond a few individual trials. The National Reconciliation Commission of 2002 to 2004, set up under Kufuor, heard thousands of testimonies and recommended reparations, but it could not prosecute anyone.
Presidential results as declared by the Electoral Commission. NDC is the National Democratic Congress, founded by Rawlings; NPP is the New Patriotic Party, heir to the Danquah–Busia tradition of the old UGCC.
Rawlings about 58%, historian Adu Boahen of the NPP about 30%, Limann third. The opposition cried fraud, published its claims as The Stolen Verdict and boycotted the December parliamentary poll. The NDC and its allies took almost all 200 seats. The republic began with a one-sided parliament.
This time everyone took part, and presidential and parliamentary votes fell on the same day. Rawlings about 57%, John Kufuor about 40%. The first Fourth Republic vote the losers broadly accepted.
Rawlings was barred by the two-term limit. Kufuor led the first round and won the run-off of 28 December against Vice-President John Atta Mills with about 57%. On 7 January 2001 power passed from one elected party to another for the first time in Ghana's history.
Kufuor about 52.5%, Mills about 44.6%, no run-off needed. Parliament grew to 230 seats.
Nana Akufo-Addo led the first round with just over 49%. The run-off of 28 December was so close that the result waited for a re-run vote in Tain constituency on 2 January 2009. Mills won with about 50.2%, a margin of roughly 40,000 votes in a country of millions. Akufo-Addo accepted it.
Atta Mills was the first Ghanaian head of state to die in office. Vice-President John Mahama was sworn in the same day, exactly as the constitution provides. Our archive: Atta Mills audio and video.
The first election with biometric voter verification. Machines failed in places and voting ran into a second day. Mahama about 50.7%, Akufo-Addo about 47.7%. The NPP went to the Supreme Court (see below). Parliament grew to 275 seats.
On his third attempt Akufo-Addo won in the first round with about 53.9% to Mahama's 44.4%. For the first time in the Fourth Republic, a sitting president lost, and he conceded.
Akufo-Addo about 51.3% after the Commission corrected its own first declaration, Mahama about 47.4%. Parliament came out 137 to 137, with one independent. Several people were killed in election-related violence, most notoriously at Techiman South. Mahama petitioned the Supreme Court and lost.
Mahama 56.55%, Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia 41.61%. Bawumia conceded the next morning, before the official declaration. The NDC took between 183 and 185 of 276 seats depending on the count after the disputed constituencies. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang became Ghana's first woman vice-president. Sworn in at Black Star Square, 7 January 2025.
Twice a losing presidential candidate has taken the result to the Supreme Court, and twice the loser has accepted the judgment.
Why it matters: in much of West Africa a disputed count has led to crisis or worse. Ghana's habit of taking disputes to court, and of losers conceding, is the Fourth Republic's real achievement, far more than any single election.
Look at the dates and a pattern jumps out: NDC 1993–2001, NPP 2001–2009, NDC 2009–2017, NPP 2017–2025, NDC from 2025. Each party has held power for eight years before losing it. In 2024 the NPP campaigned under the slogan "Break the 8", and failed to break it.
Behind the pattern is a stable two-party system with strong regional bases: the NPP strongest in the Ashanti and Eastern regions, the NDC in the Volta region and much of the north. Elections are won and lost in the swing regions, Greater Accra, Central, Western and the Bono areas, and among voters who judge the economy.
New regions, new maps: the six new regions created after the referendums of December 2018 changed the electoral map; see from 10 to 16 regions and the regions and capitals of Ghana. And the oil money that every government since 2010 has promised to spend better is covered on the Jubilee oil field.
Ghana is often called Africa's model democracy. The peaceful handovers are real. So are the problems, and Ghanaians discuss them far more openly than the tourism brochures do.
In 2025 President Mahama set up a Constitution Review Committee under the law professor H. Kwasi Prempeh. It delivered its summary in December 2025 and its full report in February 2026, titled as a move from "electoral democracy" to "developmental democracy". On 30 July 2026 the Attorney-General, Dominic Ayine, announced which proposals the government accepts.
Status, September 2026: nothing has changed yet. Amendment bills are expected around October 2026, and the entrenched provisions, including the presidential term, need a national referendum, which the government wants to hold with the 2027 District Assembly elections. The next general election is due on 7 December 2028. We will update this page as it happens.
The presidential palace built under Kufuor, abandoned by Mills for the old castle, and back in use since.
Where all 276 members sit today. Compare the Old Parliament House of the colony and the First Republic.
Where Fourth Republic presidents are sworn in on 7 January. Tips: visiting Black Star Square.
Seat of government under Rawlings and again under Mills. Our dedicated site: osucastle.ghana-net.com.
Where Atta Mills, the president of peace, is buried.
The memorial to the judges murdered in 1982: the reminder of what came before 1992.
Every head of state and president from independence to today.
The father of the tradition the NPP claims. See also Danquah on Ghana-Net.
And the first to find out what that meant.
Our own recordings of the president who died in office, including the 2010 Africa–EU summit.
The Fourth Republic was born compromised: drafted under a military ruler, opened with a boycotted election, and protected by a clause that put his regime beyond the courts. It has still become the longest and most successful period of constitutional government in Ghana's history. Three times the party in power has lost and left. Twice the loser of a presidential election has gone to court instead of the street. That is not normal in the region, and Ghanaians are right to be proud of it.
But elections are not the whole of democracy. Winner-takes-all politics, expensive campaigns, party vigilantes and fights over the judiciary are real problems, and the 2026 reform plans are an admission of that. Whether the reforms go through, and whether they fix the problem of too much power in one office, will decide what the Fourth Republic looks like when it turns forty in 2033.
Verified: 29 September 2026. The 1992 referendum, the election dates and presidential percentages (rounded) follow Electoral Commission declarations as reported in standard sources; the 2024 presidential figures follow the EC's final declaration, and the 2024 seat total is given as a range because counts differ between sources after the disputed constituencies. The petition judgments of 29 August 2013 and 4 March 2021, the removal of Chief Justice Torkornoo on 1 September 2025 and the Supreme Court ruling of 2 July 2026 follow Ghanaian press reports. The reform proposals follow the Constitution Review Committee report and the government's statement of 30 July 2026, and are not yet law. Corrections welcome and will be published in full.
