Acceso usuarios
Kingsley S. Agomor, Daniel Kofi Banini, Zechariah Langnel
The argument that incumbent politicians are frequently reelected into officegained traction in the legislative literature – giving birth to the incumbencyadvantage theory. This paper investigates why incumbents lost elections theyare supposed to win – subjecting the incumbency advantage theory to newscrutiny. Using interview data collected in 2017 examining Ghana’s 2016parliamentary and presidential elections, including relying on data from theElectoral Commission (EC) and parliamentary archives, the article evaluatesthe sources of incumbency disadvantage among Ghanaian sitting legislators.It traces the growing trend in incumbency disadvantage to: (a) theoverbearing effects of a strong executive arm of government on thelegislature, (b) management of primary elections, (c) effective oppositionparty dynamics, and (d) perceptions of incumbent parliamentarians’governance effectiveness. The evidence emerging from Ghana showsincumbents are susceptible to electoral defeats as their challengers, contraryto the dominant view that incumbents’ defeats are challenging, especially inAfrican politics.
