By John Okeke
Ghana is often cited as a success story for democratic transition. In that vein, the two main political parties, the center-right New Patriotic Party (NPP) and centre-left National Democratic Congress (NDC), have alternated stints in power since Ghana began holding multiparty elections. Moreover, although each party has bases of support in certain regions or ethnic groups, the parties define themselves by ideology and campaign on issues.
In the 2016 presidential polls, NPP’s Nana Akufo-Addo defeated incumbent John Mahama from the NDC following a contentious campaign. Eleven parties completed in the parliamentary elections, but only the NPP and the NDC won seats, with the NPP winning a majority.
The 2020 presidential election will be a rematch as the NPP has nominated Akufo-Addo for re-election and NDC has nominated Mahama. In fact, this will be their third consecutive match-up.
Although party primaries were slightly delayed due to COVID-19, NPP held its primaries on June 20, 2020 to select parliamentary candidates.
