United Party (Ghana)

The United Party ( UP ) was a political party in Ghana that was founded in January 1958.

It emerged as the only opposition party alongside the ruling Convention People's Party of Kwame Nkrumah . A constitutional amendment made Ghana a one-party state in 1964. The ruling party of Nkrumah became the national unity party, the UP dissolved.

After independence in 1957

Soon after Ghana's independence on March 6, 1957, a law to prevent discrimination ( Avoidence of Discrimination Act 1957 , CA 38) was passed at the instigation of then Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah and later President of Ghana . This law prohibited any grouping with an orientation based on ethnic, religious, regional or similar orientation with effect from December 31, 1957.

The full title of the law read:

Law on the prohibition of organizations that use for propaganda membership of a tribe, region, race or religion to the detriment of a community or to choose people based on their membership of a tribe, region or religion or similar To secure purposes. (Engl .: An Act to prohibit organizations using or engaging in tribal, regional, racial and religious propaganga to the detriment of any community, or securing the election of persons on account of their tribal, regional or religious affiliations and for other purpuse connected therewith . )

Foundation of the UP

With this law, almost the entire opposition became an illegal group almost overnight, even though it was partially present in the Legislative Assembley . In order to evade an official party ban by the High Court, the following political parties, which were covered by the ban, came together to form the UP:

The Ghana Congress Party under the later Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia also went into the UP and Busia took over the party chairmanship of the UP. Almost all of the important opposition politicians of the time were organized in the UP. Among others, JB Danquah , founder of the first party of Ghana ( United Gold Coast Convention ), Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey , later founder of the Nationalist Party , Victor Owusu , multiple Foreign Minister of Ghana and presidential candidate of his later party, Popular Front Party, and Nii Amaa Ollennu , brief head of state of Ghana and chairman of the National Democratic Party .

Political Direction

As the successor to the Ghana Congress Party , in which parts of the divided United Gold Coast Convention have merged, the United Party is an essential key point in establishing the Danquah Busia tradition. Even in today's two-party system in Ghana, the two opposing currents of the UP with the Danquah-Busia point of view and on the other side the Nkrumahrists still work. The Nkrumahrists are considered to be the basic socialist trend in the country.

The successor to the UP was the Progress Party , also chaired by Busia.

The orientation of the bourgeois-liberal Danquah Busia tradition is to be found rather in the right-wing spectrum of parties. Essentially, this political direction in Ghana and thus also the UP pursued the multi-party system, the free market economy, popular sovereignty and the rule of law.

Election results

The UP only took part in the presidential elections on April 27, 1960. Here JB Danquah ran as a direct candidate of the only opposition party UP against the ruling party CPP and was clearly defeated with just under 12 percent of the vote.

Web links

UNRISD (English; PDF file; 2.09 MB)