What does Democracy Hub have to do with democracy?

By Professor Jeffrey Haynes and Dr Samuel Kofi Darkwa

Democracy Hub is a pressure group that has made the headlines because of its recent anti-galamsey demonstration in Accra.

The Ghana Police Service (GPS) objected to the demonstration and 39 protesters were arrested and detained, including their de facto leader, Oliver Barker-Vormawor, an Accra-based lawyer.

The Democracy Hub activists were arrested over the weekend of September 21-22 after they clashed with the police.

Barker-Vormawor has been a thorn in the side of the government for several years, and the protests with which he has been associated have consistently incurred the wrath of Ghana’s police.

He and his colleagues defy court rulings not to demonstrate and the police are determined to act to keep the peace. In an unrelated case, Barker-Vormawor awaits trial for treason, accused by the government of trying to incite a coup d’état via Facebook. This Barker-Vormawor denies.

Protests

What does Democracy Hub have to do with democracy in Ghana? As everyone knows, of course, Ghana has a democratic constitution which, over the last three decades, has helped ensure that Ghana remains one of West Africa’s few consistently democratic countries.

So, if Ghana is a constitutional democracy why does Democracy Hub think that it needs to protest against the government? Surely, the ballot box is there for Ghanaians to register their approval or disapproval of an incumbent government and, when appropriate, retain the government or replace it with another?

On the other hand, demonstrations are sanctioned and guaranteed by the 1992 Constitution. Therefore, it is Democracy Hub’s constitutional right to protest, even though the country is a secular democracy.

Social protests

Democracy Hub is the most recent example in Ghana of a new wave of social protest movements. A universally recognised part of the democratic process, peaceful social protest movements comprise groups of people sharing a common interest in influencing institutions to strengthen the economic and democratic processes by, first, giving a general voice to the citizenry and, second, seeking to trigger reforms aiming to make those in charge responsive to ordinary people’s demands.

Social protest movements in Ghana, such as Democracy Hub, utilise various methods to pursue their goals, including advocacy, public awareness programmes, policy research, lobbying and organised protests. Political and economic protests have a long history in Africa, and Ghana is no exception. Simultaneously, both products and generators of change, have the potential capacity to transform the nature of politics.

Such protests may lead both to tangible results (such as policy implementation, liberal reforms and political alternation) and intangible forms of change, including perceptions, imagination and awareness. They can also lead to advances in democracy, accountability and collective knowledge.

This outcome is not, however, inevitable. Recent experience in Ghana demonstrates that social protest movements such as Democracy Hub have the capacity to focus media attention on a problematic issue of governance, such as galamsey, without the capacity to persuade the government to deal with the problem the social protest movement highlights.

Social protest movements in Ghana have a long history, appearing in both colonial and post-colonial times. Sometimes, they are successful. For example, during the 1890s, a protest was organised by the Aborigines’ Protection Rights Society, which laid a foundation for concerted anti-colonial political action, which finally led to Ghana’s independence in 1957.

Later, in 1978, Ghanaians took to the streets to protest at a government plan, the (in)famous Union Government, fearing that the then head of state, General Kutu Acheampong, was seeking to perpetuate himself in power and the military in government in perpetuity.

Acheampong was, however, unsuccessful and popular demonstrations were pivotal in a process, which saw the brief reintroduction of democracy to Ghana in 1979. Shortly after, however, the country embarked on an unsuccessful political experiment under the aegis of the Provisional National Defence Council, led by J. J. Rawlings, to bring into being a different form of democracy, based on popular power.

Will history now repeat itself? Will Ghana again find itself embroiled in prolonged social, political and economic turmoil as a result of serious governmental failings which, some suggest, are not limited to an abject failure to deal with galamsey? To the writers of this article, this seems unlikely.

This is because, since the early 1980s, political radicalism, once focused in the junior ranks of the armed forces, has been tamed and controlled by successive governments. It is also highly unlikely that there would be a military coup in Ghana; not least because most Ghanaians value democracy, and few would want to see it replaced by unelected military rule. It is interesting to note that Barker-Vormawor’s alleged encouragement of a coup d’état was met with disdain by senior military figures.

With attention focused on December’s presidential and parliamentary elections, political outcomes are unlikely to be much affected by Democracy Hub’s demonstrations. However, in the last few days, the National Democratic Congress has sought to make political capital out of the arrest of Barker-Vormawor and his colleagues.

The NDC publicly defends Democracy Hub and its arrested activists, accusing the police and government of heavy-handedness. How the travails of Democracy Hub will impact upon the electoral fortunes of Ghana’s main parties, the NPP and NDC, is a fascinating, yet currently unknowable, issue.

The writer is an Emeritus Professor of Politics, London Metropolitan University, UK and a political Scientist.