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All 104 seats in the Legislative Assembly 53 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Constitution |
 Africaportal  Politicsportal |
General elections were held in the Gold Coast on 15 June 1954. The result was a victory for Kwame Nkrumah's Convention People's Party, which won 72 of the 104 seats.
The election was held following the approval of a new constitution on 29 April 1954. The new constitution meant that assembly members were no longer elected by the tribal councils, the Assembly was enlarged, and all members were chosen by direct election from equal, single-member constituencies. It established a cabinet composed of African ministers, and only defense and foreign policy remained in the hands of the governor; the elected assembly was given control over the majority of internal affairs. [1]
| Party | Votes | % | Seats | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Convention People's Party | 391,817 | 55.44 | 72 | |
| Northern People's Party | 68,709 | 9.72 | 15 | |
| Ghana Congress Party | 32,168 | 4.55 | 1 | |
| Togoland Congress | 25,214 | 3.57 | 3 | |
| Muslim Association Party | 21,172 | 3.00 | 1 | |
| Anlo Youth Organisation | 11,259 | 1.59 | 1 | |
| Independents | 156,401 | 22.13 | 11 | |
| Total | 706,740 | 100.00 | 104 | |
| Registered voters/turnout | 1,225,603 | – | ||
| Source: Sternberger et al. [2] | ||||
In May 1956, Nkrumah's government issued a white paper containing proposals for Gold Coast independence. The British Government stated it would agree to a firm date for independence if a reasonable majority for such a step were obtained in the Gold Coast Legislative Assembly after a general election. This election was held in July 1956, and resulted in another win for the CPP. Gold Coast became the independent nation of Ghana on 6 March 1957.
Francis Kwame Nkrumah was a Ghanaian politician, political theorist, and revolutionary. He served as Prime Minister of the Gold Coast from 1952 until 1957, when it gained independence from Britain. He was then the first Prime Minister and then the President of Ghana, from 1957 until 1966. An influential advocate of Pan-Africanism, Nkrumah was a founding member of the Organization of African Unity and winner of the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union in 1962.
The area of the Republic of Ghana became known in Europe and Arabia as the Ghana Empire after the title of its Emperor, the Ghana. Geographically, the ancient Ghana Empire was approximately 500 miles (800 km) north and west of the modern state of Ghana, and controlled territories in the area of the Sénégal River and east towards the Niger rivers, in modern Senegal, Mauritania and Mali. The empire appears to have broken up following the 1076 conquest by the Almoravid General Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar. A reduced kingdom continued to exist after Almoravid rule ended, and the kingdom was later incorporated into subsequent Sahelian empires, such as the Mali Empire. Around the same time, south of the Mali empire in present-day northern Ghana, the Kingdom of Dagbon emerged. The decentralised states ruled by the tindaamba were unified into a kingdom. Many sub-kingdoms would later arise from Dagbon including the Mossi Kingdoms of Burkina Faso and Bouna Kingdom of Ivory Coast. Dagbon pioneered Ghana's earliest learning institutions, including a university town, and a writing system prior to European arrival.
The Government of Ghana was created as a parliamentary democracy, followed by alternating military and civilian governments in Ghana. In January 1993, military government gave way to the Fourth Republic after presidential and parliamentary elections in late 1992. The 1992 constitution divides powers among a president, parliament, cabinet, council of state, and an independent judiciary. The government is elected by universal suffrage.
The Gold Coast was a British Crown colony on the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa from 1821 until its independence in 1957 as Ghana. The term Gold Coast is also often used to describe all of the four separate jurisdictions that were under the administration of the Governor of the Gold Coast. These were the Gold Coast itself, Ashanti, the Northern Territories protectorate and the British Togoland trust territory.
Komla Agbeli Gbedemah was a Ghanaian politician and Minister for Finance in Ghana's Nkrumah government between 1954 and 1961. Known popularly as "Afro Gbede", he was an indigene of Anyako in the Volta Region of Ghana.
The Convention People's Party (CPP) is a socialist political party in Ghana based on the ideas of the first President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah. The CPP was formed in June 1949 after Nkrumah broke away from the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC).
The Parliament of Ghana is the legislative body of the Government of Ghana.
General elections were held in the Gold Coast on 17 July 1956. The result was a victory for Kwame Nkrumah's Convention People's Party, which won 71 of the 104 seats.
General elections were held in Gold Coast on 8 February 1951. Although elections had been held for the Legislative Council since 1925, the Council did not have complete control over the legislation, and the voting franchise was limited to residents of urban areas meeting property requirements and the councils of chiefs. The 1951 elections were the first in Africa to be held under universal suffrage.
Parliamentary appointments were scheduled to be held in Ghana on 9 June 1965. As the country was a one-party state at the time, no parties except President Kwame Nkrumah's Convention People's Party (CPP), were allowed to participate. The CPP's central committee nominated 198 candidates for the 198 seats in the National Assembly, who were then declared elected without a vote taking place.
Ghana gained independence from the British on 6 March 1957. It is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The country became a republic on July 1, 1960.
The National Reconciliation Commission was established in January 2002 by the Parliament of Ghana. The goal of the commission was to establish an "accurate, complete and historical record of violations and abuses of human rights inflicted on persons by public institutions and holders of public office during periods of unconstitutional government." The Commission was formed after a new democratic party won the elections in 2000. The Commission covered human rights violations in Ghana from 1957 to 1993. It looked into government abuses and military coups staged by former president Jerry Rawlings. The members of the Commission worked until the end of 2004.
Joseph Henry Allassani was a Ghanaian teacher and politician. He was a member of parliament and a minister of state during the first republic. He was the first health minister in the first republic of Ghana.
Jambaidu Awuni was a Ghanaian politician in the first republic. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly representing the Northern territories on the ticket of the Northern People's Party (NPP) from 1951 to 1954. He was re-elected into the legislative in 1956 to represent the Kusasi Central constituency from 1956 until 1965.
Modesto Kwasi Apaloo was a Ghanaian politician. He was a Member of parliament and was the founder and leader of the defunct Anlo Youth Organisation.
Edmund Nee Ocansey was a Ghanaian politician. He was the member of parliament for the Osudoku constituency from 1956 to 1966.
The Ghana Independence Act 1957 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that granted the Gold Coast fully responsible government within the British Commonwealth of Nations under the name of Ghana. The Act received royal assent on 7 February 1957 and Ghana came into being on 6 March 1957
The Political history of Ghana recounts the history of varying political systems that existed in Ghana during pre-colonial times, the colonial era and after independence. Pre-colonial Ghana was made up of several states and ethnic groups whose political system was categorized by 3 main administrative models; Centralized, Non-centralized and Theocratic states. In the colonial era, the British Empire employed different forms of government among its four territorial possessions in the Gold Coast. Indirect rule was implemented in the late 19th century after its success in Northern Nigeria. From the 1940s, native Ghanaians yearned for more autonomy. This resulted in the several constitutional reforms as well as the creation of the office of the Prime Minister in 1952.
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* British Togoland only | |
