Electoral Violence and Women Political Participation in Ghana

Sammanfattning: Ghana’s strive to strengthen and consolidate its democracy is met by the incidence of electoral violence and low levels of women political participation. Having passed the ‘two turnover’ test prescribed by Samuel P. Huntington, Ghana became the beacon of hope for Africa’s democracy. However, elections in the country are marred by violence and the unbalanced participation of men and women. This paper investigates how electoral violence impacts women political participation in Ghana. Using a Case Study Research, qualitative interviews were conducted on sampled women who contested in Ghana’s 2016 elections from two cities; Accra and Kumasi. Contrary to the expected finding, it is interesting that, electoral violence minimally impacts women political participation in Ghana as they are willing to participate and contest in subsequent elections despite being assaulted, insulted, victimized, intimidated and threatened in the 2016 and previous elections. Lack of funds to finance political campaigns by women appears to be the most impeding factor for women’s optimum political participation in Ghana.