According to the latest edition of the democracy index report by the Economic Intelligence Unit, Ghana’s democracy falls within the flawed region.

The survey was conducted on the basis of five measures with a maximum score of 10. The measure included electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture and civil liberties.

Flawed democracies are nations where elections are fair and free and basic civil liberties are honoured but may have issues (e.g. media freedom infringement and minor suppression of political opposition and critics). These nations can have significant faults in other democratic aspects, including underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.

The report indicated that Ghana scored 6.43 out of 10 which is a 0.07 decrease from the previous 6.5 in 2021. The score according to the report shows that Ghana’s democracy is a flawed one since the score falls within that category.

Ghana’s democracy index has been on a downward trajectory in the last 6 years and has been in the flawed region since 2010.

 Ghana however, ranked 4^th in Africa and 63^rd in the world for the global democracy index. It came behind Botswana (1^st), South Africa (2^nd), and Namibia (3^rd) who scored 7.73, 7.5 and 6.52 respectively.

Global Democracy

The global score increased by 0.01 from 2021 to 5.39 in out of 10 in 2022. According to the report this represents stagnation rather than a reversal of the democratic recession that began in 2016.

The report finds that almost half (45.3%) of the world’s population live in a democracy, while more than a third (36.9%) live under authoritarian rule. The survey rates the state of democracy across 167 countries.

The global score, however, has been on a downward stream and some of the accounts can be attributed to the widespread suppression of individual liberties during the covid-19 outbreak for protection. This was seen in the significant fall in the global score in 2020 and 2021.