Illiterates to pile up in Parliament if vote buying is not avoided – ACEPA boss

The Executive Director of the African Center for Parliamentary Affairs (ACEPA), Dr Rasheed Draman, has lamented the surge of vote buying recently in Ghana’s politics.

He opined that permitting vote buying during elections can pave the way for illiterates who do not know anything about political affairs to get into Parliament.

Vote buying is an act by which either a political party or candidate distributes money or other forms of inducements to influence the electorate to vote in their favour.

Speaking in an interview, Dr. Draman noted that it is becoming obvious that wealthy people are winning the electorates with their money, while experienced and competent candidates are set aside. A situation, he believes, does not speak well about our democratic dispensation.

“I can tell you on authority that some of the people who have decided not to contest, some of them lament that those who have come with big money to replace them are people who perhaps are ill-prepared, with very little to no education to go into parliament. You get them in there, and certainly quality is going to be affected.”

He added; “Our democracy is going to be for the highest bidder. Then we get into a situation where maybe, drug moneys from all kinds of illegitimate sources find their way into our democratic system. And the national security implications of this will be very huge,” he explained in an interview monitored by The Ghana Report on TV3.

“If nothing is done, I think in the next two cycles of our election, we are going to have a big crisis on our hands. Because those who have money are going to line up to go into parliament. It is going to be like a buffet and experienced MPs who don’t have fat wallets are going to continue to get pushed out. That’s not going to be good for our democracy and even the national security implications of that.

“All these people who have money and are pushing experienced MPS out, where are they getting the money from? Who is funding them? What is the interest of all these people who are providing them with funding? We need to interrogate all these and the implications of that on the quality of our democracy”.