The Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) has bemoaned the prevalence of vote-buying in the country’s democratic elections.
According to the National Coordinator of CODEO, Albert Arhin, unqualified individuals continue to be elected into positions of influence.
Speaking to JoyNews, he explained that it is about time the entire country collectively rose to fight the menace.
“CODEO has always been against vote-buying. We are against it in the sense that when it is vote-buying, people don’t look at the qualities of the person contesting,
“(You) give me money and I let you go or we let you go. So we don’t get quality. So it’s about time Ghanaians realised that we need to stop taking money from politicians so that we get the right choice of people to represent us,” he said.
His comments follow widespread allegations of voter inducement during the recently held parliamentary primaries of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Meanwhile, the National Organiser of the NPP, Henry Nana Boakye is calling for a broader national conversation on the menace of vote-buying in party internal elections in the country.
“We need to elevate the discussion. This canker and the cure is not an individual observation. It is supposed to be a national forum on this matter and quite possibly, how we go about electing our candidates.
“We need to elevate the discussion beyond individual political parties and then it must be a national conversation. How do we demonise our democracy?” he said.
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