Earlier in 2024, South Africans living abroad were able to exercise their civic duty of voting in their country’s general elections. According to the South Africa Electoral Commission, over 56,000 South African citizens living in 111 countries cast their votes.
Over 60 countries allow their citizens to partake in political elections while living abroad.
Ghana, however, is not among those countries.
Sources vary but according to United Nations estimates, over one million Ghanaians live abroad.
Image Credit: VOA
Despite an existing law that grants Ghanaians living in the diaspora the ability to vote, they continue to be excluded from the electoral process due to its non-implementation.
Aileen, a 55-year-old Ghanaian living in Atlanta in the United States, was unaware of the current law that granted Ghanaians living abroad voting rights.
“The diaspora should be allowed to vote since they also contribute to the wellness of the citizens and the country,” she said.
Ghanaian diasporans contribute a lot to the local economy, especially through remittances.
According to data from the World Bank, diasporans remitted an estimated $4.7 billion to the country in 2023. The amount is roughly 5% of the country’s GDP.
In 2024, diasporans remitted $6.6 billion to Ghana.
When Ghanaians voted in the 2024 general elections, diasporans once again found themselves on the sidelines.
So what are the current challenges preventing the diaspora from voting while abroad and how do Ghanaian diasporans feel about being disenfranchised during elections?
Lawsuits, Challenges, and No Roadmap
Ghana’s constitution, when unveiled in 1992, stated that every citizen had a right to vote. However, it did not grant Ghanaians living abroad that same right.
In 2006, Parliament passed ROPAA (Act 699) as an amendment to grant citizens abroad the right to vote.
In a 2011 Constutition review report , it was proposed that an independent fund be established to adequately resource Ghana’s Electoral Commission (EC) to enable it to discharge its responsibilities, including the registration of citizens abroad.
But nearly two decades later, the law is yet to be implemented.
Amerley, a 51-year-old Ghanaian born in Colorado in the US, says he is not surprised that the law had yet to be implemented, citing distrust in public officials.
“I’m not surprised it has not been implemented,” he said. “The ability for public processes to be corrupted is very high and almost inevitable as our Ananse culture limits our imagination for progress.”
In 2017, some diasporans decided to take action.
Five Ghanaian individuals who resided in the US sued the EC to implement the ROPAA Act.
An Accra high court sided with the complainants and mandated the Commission to register Ghanaian citizens abroad starting January 18, 2018.
The EC would later form a committee to draw out a roadmap to implement the Act. A final report was to be published and presented to the commission by the end of May 2019.
But the report has yet to be made public and there has been no update on the roadmap.
The EC was accused of deliberately dragging its feet. The Commission was sued for contempt of court in 2019 for failing to implement the act despite court orders.
But the EC has defended itself, citing challenges with Ghana’s Parliament.
In 2020, the Deputy Commissioner of the EC in charge of Corporate Services, Dr. Bossman Eric Asare, stated in an interview that the Commission was waiting on Parliament to act on a Constitutional Instrument (CI) that it had presented.
In an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting held in March 2024, a question was asked whether the EC would be implementing the ROPAA Act for the 2024 elections.
EC Commissioner Jean Mensa stated there were no plans to implement the act for the upcoming elections.
She did not state the reasons for the decision.
Focus on Returnees over Diasporans?
While diasporans waited on their fate of voting in elections from abroad, returnees to Ghana were given special privileges, including voting rights.
In 2019, the NPP government launched a new initiative called the “Year of Return“. The initiative encouraged Africans living in the diaspora to return to Ghana and contribute to the homeland.
In 2022, President Akufo Addo granted citizenship to over 500 returnees, effectively granting them civic rights including the right to vote.
Although there was a lot of fanfare from the Diaspora Community in Ghana, some diasporans living abroad were not so enthusiastic.
Charlene, a 33-year-old Ghanaian who moved and is currently residing in the United Kingdom, spoke of the difficulty of Ghanaians abroad to obtain certain citizen artifacts.
“It’s not very easy as a Ghanaian in the diaspora to get a Ghanaian passport and to be well integrated into society back home so I do sometimes think that it’s unfair that we would be having whole ceremonies for other people to get a Ghanaian passport,” she stated.
On the other hand, Serwaa, a 45-year-old who resides in England, was more optimistic.
“I think it’s a step in the right direction,” she said. She, however, wished that more was being done to help diasporans vote in elections while abroad.
“More has to be done to change things.”
Michelle, a 36-year-old Ghanaian American entrepreneur who moved back to Ghana in 2016, stated that she was fine with returnees being given citizenship but said location should not be a factor when voting in elections.
“Ghanaians should be able to vote in elections regardless of their location,” she said.
Will Diasporans Be Able to Vote in the 2028 Elections?
As Ghanaians went to the polls on December 7th to elect a new president, citizens in the diaspora were, once again, unable to participate.
Neither of the major candidates in the NPP or NDC party explicitly went on record to speak on the issue of Ghanaian diasporans voting from abroad.
When asked how she felt about the inability to vote from abroad despite being a citizen, Charlene in the UK voiced her frustration.
“I think it’s a travesty”, she said. “We contribute a lot to society back home so it’s unfair that for some reason we don’t get to decide what happens inside our own country.”
As the country continues to evolve politically and economically, Ghanaian lawmakers in the new government administration should revisit the issue of the diaspora voting in general elections.
The question is whether lawmakers will be able to put measures in place for the Ghanaian diaspora to vote before the 2028 elections.
Marian Ansah, a journalist who resides in the UK, spoke about her inability to vote in the 2024 elections.
“It should be embraced that staying abroad is not a sufficient argument for disenfranchisement,” she said.
“The lack of concrete measures from the government and the EC regarding diaspora voting is unacceptable.”
