Story By: Ishmael Barfi
Ghana’s democratic institutions face significant threats from the influence of money in elections, unchecked incumbency advantages, and vote buying.
According to the Executive Director of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Mary Awelana Addah, this erodes trust and alienates youth, women, and vulnerable groups.
Speaking at the official launch of a project to monitor campaign spending, abuse of incumbency, and vote buying in this year’s general election, Mrs. Addah indicated that, for a candidate to contest for a Parliamentary election, he/she needs approximately $85,000 to secure a party’s nomination for parliament.
She further revealed that the youth, including women and the vulnerable, were also alienated from the political space as a result of the excessive monetization of the country’s democracy.
To buttress her claims, Mrs Addah cited an assessment report by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) and the Westminister Foundation.
According to the report, an average candidate needs about GH¢389,803, approximately $85,000, to secure a party’s primary nomination to compete in a parliamentary election.
The project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through its International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), is aimed at promoting transparency and accountability in the country’s electoral process.
The initiative is being implemented by the GII Consortium, comprising the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) and CDD-Ghana.
Data on campaign financing would be gathered and a platform created for stakeholders to push for reforms of the prevailing system.
To address this, GII has launched a project, funded by USAID, to monitor campaign spending, abuse of incumbency, and vote buying. The initiative promotes transparency, accountability, and inclusive democracy.
The Project seeks to address Key challenges including unclear donation laws, unchecked corporate and foreign donations, abuse of state resources, and lack of transparency in campaign financing.
Speaking on the challenges, Mrs Addah observed that the country’s campaign financing and political party funding laws had significant gaps, noting that the current regulations don’t provide for direct public funding of political parties.
“The law remains unclear on whether only persons, and not companies, can make donations, yet it is common knowledge that businesses, including foreign entities, contribute to political parties. “There is no limit to donations, as such, much of the funding parliamentary candidates receive goes unaccounted for,” she noted.
The GII Executive director further explained that “while vote buying is technically illegal, it is widely ignored, and no law prohibits the use of public resources for campaigns, leading to rampant abuse of incumbency”.
Adding that disclosure laws did not require parties to identify their donors because the regulations applied only to political parties and not individual candidates, thus undermining financial transparency in elections.
Elaborating more on the challenges, Mrs Addah also mentioned the abuse of state resources such as government vehicles, public events for party purposes, manipulation of state media, and the improper use of security agencies, which are not new in the country’s political landscape.
The Executive Director, therefore, said it was in response to those challenges that the project had been launched to create awareness and advocate comprehensive party and campaign financing reforms in the country.
The project she noted would ensure that elections were won on ideas and policies, not on the weight of financial backing or incumbency advantage.
The Senior Election Specialist of IFES Ghana, Gilbert Sam; Director of Programmes, CDD-Ghana, Frederick Adu Gyamfi, and Chief of Party, USAID’s Political Accountability Activity, Sunday Alao, took turns to speak of the relevance of the project which they said would go a long way to sustain and make the country’s democracy more inclusive.
Source: www.thenewindependentonline.com
