Ghana's Democratic Dawn: The 2000 Election and the Peaceful Transfer of Power

The Fourth Republic began on 7 January 1993, when Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings — who had seized power twice (1979 and 1981) — was inaugurated as a constitutionally elected president. The 1992 Constitution, approved by 92.6% in a referendum on 28 April 1992, established term limits, an independent Electoral Commission, and guaranteed fundamental freedoms. Yet the transition was rocky. Rawlings won the November 1992 presidential election with 58.4% against Professor Albert Adu Boahen of the New Patriotic Party, but the opposition boycotted the subsequent parliamentary elections, alleging fraud. The NDC swept 189 of 200 seats in an essentially uncontested vote.

By 1996, the opposition returned. Rawlings won re-election with 57.2% against John Kufuor, but the NPP now held 61 seats, and the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC), established in 1994 by the Electoral Commission under Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, was building cross-party confidence. The EC compiled a new voters' register with 10,698,652 registered voters and deployed transparent ballot boxes — replacing the opaque wooden boxes that had fuelled 1992's distrust.

By 2000, Article 66 of the Constitution barred Rawlings from seeking a third term. The succession question consumed the NDC. Rawlings handpicked his vice president, Professor John Evans Atta Mills — a University of Ghana law professor and former Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service — as the NDC candidate. Atta Mills was a mild-mannered tax specialist, the antithesis of the charismatic Rawlings, and critics questioned whether he could fill the vacuum. The stage was set for the most consequential election since independence.