President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in his February 8, 2018 Message on the State of the Nation to Parliament announced that Article 55 – an entrenched provision of the 1992 Constitution – should be amended in order to allow political parties to participate in decentralized local governance. This will enable Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) and membership of MMDAs as well as sub-district structures to be elected on multiparty basis. Currently, political parties are
constitutionally debarred from participating in district level elections (DLEs). The amendment of Article 55 has been limited to the election of MMDCEs, membership of MMDAs and sub-district structures such as Unit Committees which is only covered in Clause 3 of Article 55. However, Article 55 has 17 clauses and covers political parties in Ghana.
Given the narrow or limited discussion of the Article, this review seeks to examine the 17 clauses of Article 55 with the aim of contributing to the debate on political parties in Ghana even though it is not all the 17 clauses of the Article that have been slated for amendment.
