Parliamentary Turnover in Ghana’s Fourth Republic: Perspectives of Members of Parliament

Since the return to constitutional rule in Ghana in January 1993, the high turnover of parliamentarians in Ghana’s fourth republican parliament has been a source of concern to not only Members of Parliament (MPs) and the leadership of parliament, but to the academia as well. The minority and majority leaders in the seventh parliament of the fourth republic of Ghana have bemoaned this practice where most MPs do not go past one term of parliament. The aim of this study was to examine members of parliament perceptions about impact and implications of the high attrition rate of MPs on the members and parliament as an institution. Data for the study was collected in 2019 through semi-structured interviews conducted with forty-five purposively selected minority and majority MPs of the fourth republic. The findings revealed that the high attrition rate of MPs affects the work of parliament and parliamentarians significantly. Parliamentarians reported that the loss of experience MPs to fresh one affects the quality of work done by the legislative arm of government. They revealed further that the outrageously high attrition rate cannot facilitate the growth of parliament; neither can it grow our parties. They identified: (i) increasing monetization of internal party elections (ii) unfulfilled promises of MPs (iii) pettiness on the part of constituents and party activists as some of the causes of the high attrition rate of parliamentarians in Ghana’s parliament. Given the diversity of opinions on the phenomenon, parliamentarians suggested that the public affairs department should intensive its education on the workings of parliament and its engagement with the general public.