Abstract

The cancellation of Ghana’s 2019 referendum provoked a public furore after depriving citizens of the promised constitutional right to affect the recruitment of district mayors. The consequent recriminations between the opposition and the incumbent effectively focused on the content of the poll, especially a vicious infiltration of party politics into the municipal councils. Drawing on multiple strands of data and fieldwork experience, this article presents an alternative view that unearths the inherent political equilibrium that undergirded the cancellation of the planned poll. Embedded in the political sociology of referendum, I show that despite their ostensibly competing views on local government, both parties had the end goal of maintaining the status quo, as they implicitly agreed to initiate and terminate the poll. This offered a basis for them to display their varying views on the exercise publicly while cloaking a long-standing convention to safeguard the municipal hierarchy and patronage.

摘要

取消加纳 2019 年的全民公投，剥夺了公民承诺的影响地区市长招聘的宪法权利后，引发了公众的愤怒。反对派和现任者之间随之而来的相互指责实际上集中在民意调查的内容上，尤其是政党政治对市议会的恶性渗透。借鉴多方面的数据和实地工作经验，本文提出了另一种观点，揭示了支持取消计划中的民意调查的内在政治平衡。在全民投票的政治社会学中，我表明尽管他们对地方政府的观点表面上存在竞争，但双方的最终目标都是维持现状，因为他们暗中同意发起和终止投票。