Vote buying in Ghanaian elections in the fourth republic a case study of the Ablekuma Central Constituency in the Greater Accra Region

Abstract

Vote-buying is a contentious issue in contemporary discourse on the sustainability of democratic development in Ghana. This practice is gradually crippling electoral processes and undermining the efforts of the electoral umpire in conducting competitive, free, fair, and credible elections for the sustenance of democratic development in Ghana. The main purpose of the study was to investigate the causes, impact, and the prevention of vote buying in the Ablekuma Central Constituency elections. To achieve the set objective, the study adopted the mixed method research approach for gathering and analyzing data. In all 322 questionnaires were distributed to respondents and six interviewees were interviewed for the study. The researcher discovered that, the poorer a voter, the more likely he or she is to experience vote buying, the perception voters have about politics and politicians is closely linked to vote buying, voters sell their votes to politicians due to the perception they have about them, vote buying is seen as a business. Politicians use monetary exchange, making of huge promises, sod cutting and gifts to persuade voters to vote in a particular way. The study also revealed that vote buying is a threat to democracy, hinders the honesty of the electoral process, prevents development and promotes corruption. The researcher therefore recommended that candidates caught for offences of vote buying should be disqualified to be voted for and should also be treated as criminals as this will help prevent vote buying.