Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung@ 40 in Ghana These Constitutional provisions together with the Electoral Commission Act, 1993 (Act 451) have ensured that since its establishment in July 1993, the Commission has lived up to its mission statement:“to advance the course of democracy and good governance for enhanced development of Ghana by institutionalising free, fair and transparent elections to the acceptance of all stakeholders” Indeed, the fact that two democratic power shifts were possible is an encouraging indicator and asset for the consolidation of democratic culture among political parties in particular and citizens in general. The Ghana Electoral Commission has over the years enjoyed the support of all political parties and does not witness constant changes at whims and caprices of people in power as is the case with many other African countries. This has resulted in accumulated experience from lessons learned, which has created an institutional credibility among Ghanaians of various, if not all political leanings. Thus, in spite of the fact that the constitution mandates the President to appoint members of the Commission in consultation with the Council of State, the members of the Commission have won support of most Ghanaians in their operation due to the Commission's repeatedly proved independence. Electoral Reforms To deal with some of the difficulties and concerns raised by stakeholders after the 1992 Elections, the Commission embarked on a number of electoral reforms. First, was the task of providing Ghanaians with a credible voters register. In undertaking the new voter registration exercise in 1995, the Commission invited the ruling party and opposition parties to deploy two polling agents each to observe the registration exercise across the 20,000 registration centres nationwide. It also introduced voter thumb printer identity cards bearing the name, age and in a limited number of cases, voters were provided with a photo identity card. However, before the 2000 elections, the Commission replaced all thumb-printed identity cards with photo identity cards. This was to address concerns raised about impersonation involving 11