Many are worried that Ghana is on a dangerous path with the rising cost of politics and vote-buying in public elections in the country.
Distribution of electrical appliances, Motorbikes, cash in branded envelopes and allocation of plots of land are some of the means through which votes are traded at party primaries, by-elections and national polls.
After the NPP Parliamentary Primaries, a frustrated winner of the poll in Asante Akyem North, Andy Appiah Kubi bemoaned the rise in vote-buying and monocracy and blurted, “Monetization that is coming into politics is making politics unattractive and I’m sounding this warning if this is the way we are going to go all out, next time I’ll not be competing.”
In 2016, a survey conducted by the Westminster foundation for Democracy pegged the cost of winning political party parliamentary primaries at 85000 US Dollars. 5 years later in 2021, a report from the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development revealed that the cost for winning party parliamentary primaries had doubled to a little over 175,000 US Dollars. To enter parliament, the cost of both primaries and the national election stands at 350,000 US Dollars.
At the presidential level, the picture is scarier. A cut-throat cost of 100 million dollars, according to the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development is required to prosecute a campaign across the country.
For Political Scientist and CDD Fellow, Dr John Osae Kwapong, the trend is worrying, and it is about time, the nation realizes that this is a problem.
”It creates the impression that what wins elections and what gets people elected into office is how much money you have. So that becomes a very worrying trend, especially when sometimes you don’t know where this money comes from,” he notes.
Dr Joseph Asunka of the pan African political and economic research platform, Afrobarometer is of the view that the first step towards dealing with the challenge is for the Electoral Commission to gather data on the issue, process it and lead the way solving the problem.
He says “It is possible for us to systematically gather data on how much political parties or candidates are investing in their campaigns that can be very useful. The Electoral Commission should have clear accurate data on how much candidates and political parties are spending. The question is, are those data actually being reported to the Electoral Commission?”
Drawing lessons from the American experience, Dr John Osae Kwapong argues that there must be punitive sanctions for vote-buying. He also advocates for open primaries by political parties to reduce the influence of vote-buying.
He contends “I have been advocating for open primaries. Let every registered party member in that constituency vote. It will be more difficult to induce and buy an entire constituency of voters as supposed to a subset like delegates.”
In an election year, this important national conversation must be had to deal with this problem.