Chapter 3 Negotiating Populism and Populist Politics in Ghana, 1949-2012 Emma Birikorang and Kwesi Aning Abstract Ghanaian politics has seen the use of populist rhetoric to attract support and votes from sections of the population. This phenomenon existed in the pre-independence period where political elites used populism to attain independence and to channel the energies and support of Ghanaians in the nation-building process. This chapter conceptualizes populism and popular politics in Ghana from the immediate post-independence period, exploring how populism and popular politics have been used by different politicians representing different political ideologies to gain access to, and in some cases retain, power. It also discusses how different military regimes employed populist political rhetoric to garner support from the masses for their unconstitutional interventions in national politics but subsequently failed to maintain this support among Ghanaians, and even among their own rank-and-file. The argument this chapter makes is that populists can be found both in government and in opposition. But more critically, the defining issue with populism and populist rhetoric in Ghana has been its initial usage to:(a) gain political power; and(b) secure continued popular support once power has 61