In , faced with growing resentment and afraid of internal opposition, Nkrumah pushed a constitutional amendment that made Ghana a one-party state and made himself the life president.
As opposition grew, people also complained that Nkrumah was spending too much time building networks and connections abroad and too little time paying attention to his own people's needs.
The military-police National Liberation Council that took over after the coup promised elections. After a constitution was drafted for the Second Republic, elections were held in Once again, people were optimistic and believed the new government would handle Ghana's problems better than Nkrumah. Ghana still had high debts, however, and servicing the interest was crippling the country's economy.
Cocoa prices were also slumping and Ghana's share of the market had declined. In an attempt to right the boat, Busia implemented austerity measures and devalued the currency, but these moves were deeply unpopular. Acheampong rolled back many of the austerity measures. This benefited many people in the short term, but the economy worsened in the long term.
Ghana's economy had negative growth meaning the gross domestic product declined throughout the s, as it had in the late s. Inflation ran rampant. Between and , the inflation rate averaged around 50 percent. In , it was percent. For most Ghanaians, the necessities of life were getting harder and harder to obtain, and minor luxuries were out of reach.
Amidst rising discontent, Acheampong and his staff proposed a Union Government, which was to be a government ruled by the military and civilians. The alternative to the Union Government was continued military rule. Perhaps it is unsurprising, then, that the contentious Union Government proposal passed in a national referendum. Affufo and restrictions on political opposition were lessened. As the country prepared for elections in , Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings and several other junior officers launched a coup.
They weren't successful at first, but another group of officers broke them out of jail. Rawlings made a second, successful coup attempt and overthrew the government. The reason Rawlings and the other officers gave for taking power just weeks before national elections was that the new Union Government would be no more stable or effective than previous governments.
They were not stopping the elections themselves but they did execute several members of the military government, including the former leader General Acheampong, who had already been unseated by Affufo.
They also purged the higher ranks of the military. After the elections, the new president Dr. Hilla Limann forced Rawlings and his co-officers into retirement. When the government was unable to fix the economy and corruption continued, Rawlings launched a second coup. On December 31, , he, several other officers, and some civilians seized power again. Rawlings remained Ghana's head of state for the next 20 years.
The "revolution" Rawlings led had Socialist leanings, but it was also a populist movement. These committees were supposed to create democratic processes at the local level. They were tasked with overseeing the work of administrators and ensuring the decentralization of power. Rawlings' populist touch and charisma won over crowds and he initially enjoyed support.
There was opposition from the beginning, however. Just a few months after the PNDC came to power, they executed several members of an alleged plot to overthrow the government. The harsh treatment of dissidents is one of the primary criticisms made of Rawlings, and there was little freedom of the press in Ghana during this time.
As Rawlings moved away from his socialist colleagues, he gained enormous financial support from Western governments for Ghana. This support was also based on Rawlings' willingness to enact austerity measures, which showed how far the "revolution" had moved from its roots. Eventually, his economic policies brought improvements, and he is credited with having helped save Ghana's economy from collapse. In the late s, the PNDC was facing international and internal pressures and began exploring a shift toward democracy.
In , a referendum for returning to democracy passed and political parties were permitted again in Ghana. In late , elections were held. Rawlings ran for the National Democratic Congress party and won the elections. He was thus the first President of Ghana's Fourth Republic.
The opposition boycotted the elections, which undercut the triumph. The elections that followed were deemed free and fair, and Rawlings won those as well. The shift to democracy led to further aid from the West, and Ghana's economic recovery continued to gain steam in the eight years of Rawlings' presidential rule.
In , the true test of Ghana's fourth republic came. Rawlings was prohibited by term limits from running for President a third time. The opposition party's candidate John Kufour won the Presidential elections. Kufour had run and lost to Rawlings in , and the orderly transition between parties was an important sign of the political stability of Ghana's new republic.
Kufour focused much of his presidency on continuing to develop Ghana's economy and international reputation. He was reelected in In , John Atta Mills Rawlings' former Vice President who had lost to Kufour in the elections won the election and became Ghana's next president.
He died in office in and was temporarily replaced by his Vice President John Dramani Mahama, who won the subsequent elections called for by the constitution. Amidst the political stability, however, Ghana's economy has stagnated. In , new oil reserves were discovered. This added to Ghana's wealth in resources but has not yet brought a boost to Ghana's economy. The oil discovery has also increased Ghana's economic vulnerability, and the crash in oil prices decreased revenue. Despite Nkrumah's efforts to secure Ghana's energy independence through the Akosambo Dam, electricity remains one of Ghana's hurdles more than 50 years later.
This led to trade in gold in that region and consequently the rapid development of where is known as Akwamu in the seventeenth century. The dominance of this region was taken over by the Ashanti in the eighteenth century. The Danes, English, and Dutch became the major traders in the area but this time the object of trade was slaves, not gold. With the advancement of the slave trade, the Ashanti people became stronger ruling the whole central region and their king, Asantehene, enthroning a golden stool.
As the Europeans outlawed the slave trade, the Ashanti people lost most of their power leading to several wars. The continually gained power in the region and by , the southern regions became a British Colony known by the name Gold Coast.
Three decades later the British gained full control of the Ashanti region as well. January 1, , saw Ashanti declared as a British Crown Colony while the regions further north were named as the Northern Protectorate of the Gold Coast. The colonial period was relatively peaceful, prosperous, and uneventful. After the Second World War, the story changed as events in the Gold Coast region moved so fast leading to the region gaining independence. This revolution was led by Kwame Nkrumah who had returned home after a year sojourn in the United States and Britain studying and practicing radical politics.
The body had already won the right to be part of the legislature ensuring African majority in the assembly. What they were after was a major share in executive power. The new party was committed to the struggle of immediate self-government under the leadership of Nkrumah. By the beginning of the next year, several peaceful protests were led by the leader of the CPP leading to his arrest and imprisonment. Despite his absence, the CPP won convincingly in the first general elections in the Gold Coast held in Consequently, Nkrumah is released from incarceration to join the government and by he became the Prime Minister.
As the Gold Coast prepared for independence, British Togo voted to be merged with the Gold Coast in a plebiscite.
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