AG backs one-member-one-vote in political party elections

The Attorney-General has urged the Supreme Court to hold that political parties in Ghana are not private clubs but public-interest institutions whose internal elections must comply with the democratic guarantees of the 1992 Constitution.

In the Statement of Case filed in Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng & 2 Others v New Patriotic Party & 4 Others, the Attorney-General’s central case is that every registered member in good standing of a political party is constitutionally entitled to participate directly and meaningfully in the election of that party’s presidential and parliamentary candidates.

The suit challenges the delegate-based electoral college systems used by the New Patriotic Party, the National Democratic Congress and the Convention People’s Party in selecting candidates for national elections.

According to the Attorney-General, the starting point is that political parties perform a public constitutional function. They are the vehicles through which citizens organise for political power, nominate candidates for public office and ultimately influence the direction of national governance. On that footing, the AG argues, their internal arrangements cannot be treated as purely private matters immune from constitutional scrutiny.

The Attorney-General relies heavily on Article 55(5) of the Constitution, which provides that the internal organisation of every political party must conform to democratic principles. In the AG’s view, that provision must be read together with the broader constitutional commitment to popular sovereignty, universal adult suffrage, equal political participation and non-discrimination.

The core submission is that where a political party restricts the election of its presidential or parliamentary candidates to a limited body of delegates, executives, elders or selected representatives, it risks materially disenfranchising ordinary members in good standing. The AG therefore contends that delegate systems, to the extent that they exclude the general membership from meaningful voting rights, are inconsistent with the Constitution.

The Attorney-General’s argument does not merely attack the internal rules of one party. It frames the case as a structural constitutional question about how political power is organised in Ghana’s Fourth Republic. The AG submits that because candidate selection determines who may realistically access public office, constitutional standards must reach those internal party processes.

Drawing on comparative constitutional experience from Germany, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and other jurisdictions, the Attorney-General argues that modern constitutional democracies increasingly recognise that political parties occupy a special public position. They may be voluntary associations, but their role in public governance means they must observe minimum democratic standards.

The AG is therefore asking the Supreme Court to declare that Article 55(5) requires political parties to conduct candidate selection processes in a manner that gives every member in good standing a substantially equal vote. The Attorney-General also proposes a measured remedial approach, including a transitional period to allow political parties and Parliament to align party constitutions, electoral rules and the Political Parties Act with the constitutional standard.

In practical terms, the Attorney-General’s position, if accepted, could transform how Ghana’s major political parties select presidential and parliamentary candidates. It would move the system away from delegate-dominated contests and toward a broader one-member-one-vote model, or at least a system that gives ordinary party members a real and equal say.

The case now places before the Supreme Court a major governance question: whether political party democracy in Ghana begins and ends with delegates, or whether the Constitution requires the ordinary party member to stand at the centre of internal electoral power.