Ghanaians’ attitude towards military rule is softening – CDD report

A Political Scientist with the Centre for Democratic Development, Ghana (CDD-Ghana), Dr. John Osae-Kwapong, has revealed that per the findings of their Afrobaromter reports, Ghanaians seem to becoming more accepting of military regimes.

According to him, in a series of the Afrobaromter reports carried out over a number of years, the percentage of Ghanaians who seem to be agreeable or somewhat agreeable with a military regime have increased.

This he says is a matter of concern and should be critically looked at.

“So in the first round of Afro barometer, about 89% of Ghanaians said they strongly disapprove of military rule. But that has dropped by almost 20% so yes 69% in 2019 still reject military rule, but I’ve been a little concerned that you see some kind of softening in our attitudes towards that.

“In the Spring of 2017, the Pew Research Centre in their global attitude survey also asked about the different types of political systems and one of it was if the military came in to rule and about 40-something percent said it will be good or somewhat good. So for me those are the sour spots in our democratic dispensation,” he said

He further added that often, the support of Ghanaians towards democracy is driven by political variants.

“So if we trust in our democratic institutions and we perceive less incidences of corruption among our democratic institutions, our support for democracy grows,” he said.

He stated that Ghanaians also measure their satisfaction with democracy by looking at a government’s delivery of key social and economic goods like job creation, economic management etc.

“So I think for me, the bigger conversation now is how do we get our democracy to really deliver on the promise of democracy beyond just political goods like freedom of speech, the basic liberties that we are guaranteed.

“For me, I think most people will share the sentiment that it is a good thing that we’ve had a relatively stable democratic dispensation, our 4th republic has lasted since 1992, and I personally don’t think anybody wants to see a disruption to it. But I think what everyone will want to see is how is it delivering on the basic economic challenges that citizens face?” he said.

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