Women as Victims and Perpetrators: Gender, Violence and Political Agency at the Local Levels in Ghana

Ghana is famous for its peaceful and democratic elections. However, the 2020 elections were characterised by an increasing level of electoral violence. Most research on electoral violence in Africa does not adopt a gender perspective, but present men’s perspectives exclusively. The article places women in politics from two local contexts with a record of electoral violence centre stage – respectively Ablekuma West and Asawase – to explore how micro level factors and dynamics link to the national level politics and result in electoral violence from gendered perspectives. Gendered electoral violence can be defined as ‘acts perpetrated by men against women with the aim of devaluing, demeaning and de-humanizing them and their identity as women so as to promote men’s dominance in electoral thereby influencing electoral choices and outcomes’ (Ngonga & Muddell 2019: 4). However, women in local politics are not just victims of electoral violence. The article illustrates how women are exposed to different forms of violence (physical and psychological), but also how women in local politics are actively engaging in acts of electoral violence in the two local contexts. Women in local politics are not peaceful passive objects of electoral violence but also violent active subjects and consequently women’s political citizenships and agency are double sided. The article argues for a focus on intersectional perspectives on electoral violence as it takes place based on both the fact that they are women and the fact that they belong to one of the two dominant parties (NPP or NDC).