Accra, Feb. 16, GNA – The Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) and the Civic Forum Initiative (CFI) have urged urgent national action to curb vote buying and selling in Ghana’s elections.
The two civil society organisations warned that the practice threatened the country’s democratic gains.
In a joint press release copied to the Ghana News Agency, IDEG and CFI expressed “grave concern” over the persistent monetisation of elections, which they said was openly highlighted during the recent National Democratic Congress parliamentary primary ahead of the Ayawaso East constituency by-election scheduled for March 3, 2026.
The statement said some public reactions from leading political actors appeared to suggest that vote buying and selling had become so widespread that they risked being accepted as the “new normal” in Ghana’s democratic practice.
“Vote selling and buying are so injurious to our nascent democracy that they should not and cannot be accepted as a standard practice in any democratic political culture,” the statement said.
IDEG and CFI attributed the commercialisation of electoral politics to what they described as the lack of a strong values-based bond between voters and the political class, as well as the near absence of servant leadership within the political system.
“This vacuum has been filled with the monetisation of electoral politics, whereby voters offer their votes in exchange for financial and material rewards,” the statement noted.
It said that candidates often considered monetary inducements as the “surest way to enlist electoral loyalty.”
The groups cautioned that in such an environment, regulations on bribery, treating and other electoral offences would remain ineffective, as enforcement institutions would inevitably be weakened.
They observed that internal party elections were often perceived as processes within the exclusive domain of political parties rather than the state and its agencies, including the Electoral Commission (EC).
To address the situation, IDEG and CFI proposed a series of reforms, including the development and enforcement of clear guidelines by political party executives to curb vote buying and related offences in internal elections.
They also called for a broader mandate for the EC to supervise internal party elections, in line with the constitutional requirement that the internal organisation of political parties be based on democratic principles.
The statement urged investigative agencies to take concrete steps to address electoral inducements and called on the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) to intensify efforts to inculcate democratic values within political parties.
“When political advancement depends on financial capacity, public office risks being treated as a private investment to be recovered rather than a public trust to be honoured,” the statement said.
GNA
Edited by Kenneth Sackey