Examining the'Politics of Patronage' in Ghana Chapter 6 Political patronage can be found at most levels of society in Ghana, but it is particularly observed in the unequal relationships between political leaders and their'supporters'. It is also noteworthy that the illiberal nature of most African democracies and especially their characteristic centralization of power around the presidency and the pervasive clientelism that make up the relationship between the state and the citizenry has made the allure of'state capture' all the more rewarding to political leaders (van de Walle, 2003). Following from this, one of the primary reasons for the entrenchment of patronage systems in Ghana is directly linked to the 1992 Constitution, which allows power to be overly concentrated in the hands of the executive branch and by default, the presidency. This has led to an excessively powerful presidency, and has created a situation in which control of the executive branch is the overwhelmingly dominant objective of multiparty political competition in Ghana(Gyimah-Boadi 2009). Thus, the hegemonic presidency in Ghana has encouraged reliance on political patronage and corruption and has also fired up political competition for power. The Constitution even gives the President discretionary authority to make temporary appointments and even evade parliamentary scrutiny. 67 The presidency is, therefore, the dominant area for decision making, raising the stakes in the electoral process as to who gets in to control power. It has also resulted in the Office of the President becoming a parallel government with considerably 67 The Constitution, in Chapter Eight, outlines the powers of the executive arm of government. For instance, Article 70 empowers the President to appoint heads of public institutions in consultation with a Council of State which he himself appoints. To further illustrate this point, the NPP in the election year 2000, indicated in its manifesto dubbed'Agenda for positive change' that it would reduce wastage in the system by pruning down the then current number of ministers from 89 to only 19( Amoah, 2000: 1). However, by the end of its two terms, the NPP government had about 90 ministers, an indication perhaps of the many'clients' it had to service. 188