Managing Election- Relation Violence for Democratic Stability in Ghana discourse that citizens need to make enlightened electoral choices, the media are used to spread insults and incite bigotry, the eventual outcome of elections becomes perverted. Wright (1993, p. 110) had no doubts about the effect on political accountability and the mandate to govern: '…when someone wins an election only by convincing the public to vote against the other candidate, e.g., by running a purely critical campaign, then when it is time to govern, the winner's positive ideas will not have been heard. The voters will have been motivated by antipathy for the opponent instead of by support for the new official.' And, to the extent that there develops among the public a mood of antipathy towards democratic institutions and processes, the media might be deemed to have produced(or at least contributed to) a malign effect on the political process. To return to the example of the media publishing half-truths and falsehood, the political efficacy argument calls attention to the danger of the media actually hurting the democracy that secured the freedom they enjoy. For, if the public are exposed to, and persuaded by the distortions and falsehoods that they read or hear, they may consequently vote for and make demands on their leaders based on those misrepresentations. And if the use of negative propaganda and fear-mongering were to discourage the public from becoming politically engaged or even voting, then the political system would be defective. Kantians and liberal puritans might even argue that in this case, the legitimacy of office is questionable, and the moral authority to govern is 217