A voter casts his ballot at a polling station in Accra, Ghana.

Ghana is lauded in the West for its stable democracy. But under the surface, fragility is threatening the country’s democratic foundations.

Artisanal miners prospect for gold in Ghana.

Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo’s “Resilient Ghana” program, which seeks to halt and reverse deforestation while also boosting the country’s economy, has won plaudits abroad. But Ghanaians are more skeptical, and for good reason. Deforestation is a grave problem in Ghana, but successive governments have done little to address it.

Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo.

Ghana’s latest IMF bailout was necessitated by a combination of global shocks and domestic factors, primarily a spending spree by President Nana Akufo-Addo’s administration. Akufo-Addo campaigned for the presidency in 2016 on the promise of change. Seven years on, change has indeed come. But it has not been in the promised direction.

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