MIASA & Departmental Monthly Seminar Series, November 2019 Edition

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
Departmental Monthly Seminar Series
November, 2019 Edition

Topic: Parliamentary Primaries and Democracy in Africa: Empirical Evidence of Candidate Selection and Nomination Methods from Ghana.

Date: 6th November, 2019

Time: 3:00PM

Venue: Kofi Drah Conference Room (Department of Political Science

Speaker: Dr Gbensuglo Alidu Bukari (Miasa Fellow & Lecturer, University of Education, Winneba)

Abstract

The paper analyses candidate selection and nomination rules in Ghana's two major political parties' parliamentary primaries. It seeks to determine the extent to which the intra-party rules vary as an indicator of their selection of women and visible minority (people with disability) parliamentary candidates. The paper employed candidate selection methods framework designed by Rahat and Hazan (2001). It examines five dimensions of candidate selection in parliamentary primaries, and these include; the candidacy, the selectorate, centralization, electoral versus appointment procedures or approaches to gender and diversity. This helps to explain patterns in their selection of women candidates, and visible minority candidates (people with disability, religion, ethnicity etc). The study concludes by suggesting that future frameworks need to separately analyse the position of women and visible minority candidates in intra-party selection procedures.