The Centre for Democratic Development Ghana (CDD-Ghana) has urged the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to introduce clear rules and stronger monitoring systems to address allegations of vote-buying in its internal elections.
Programme Officer of CDD-Ghana, Vera Abena Addo, said the party needed to move beyond discussions about guidelines and demonstrate a commitment to tackling the practice before its forthcoming regional and national executive elections.
She warned that incidents at the constituency level could set expectations for subsequent contests, potentially increasing pressure on candidates to offer money or gifts to delegates seeking to elect party executives.
Speaking on Joy News’ PM Express on Tuesday, October 27, Ms Addo said the party should establish regulations governing its internal elections, even in the absence of specific laws addressing the conduct of such contests.
“Even without the laws regulating the internal election, I think that the party needs to have some regulation,” she said.
She expressed concern that the development of guidelines appeared to be taking too long, given the party’s electoral calendar.
“I think it’s taking long, and I’m hoping that even before we move into the next level of elections [it would be implemented],” she said, referring to the regional and national polls that will follow the constituency contests.
Concerns over future contests
Ms Addo said allegations of vote-buying at the constituency level raised questions about what might happen when the party moved to elections involving regional and national delegates.
“If at a constituency level we see this kind of activity happening, then how much more at the regional level?” she asked.
She suggested that the distribution of money or gifts during constituency elections could create expectations among delegates contesting or participating in subsequent rounds of internal elections.
“We expect that if we have given something at the constituency level, then they equally would want to expect something at the regional level and then at the national level,” she said.
Ms Addo said the party needed to take the concerns seriously and act before the next stages of its internal electoral process.
Referring to previous concerns about vote-buying, including the Ayawaso incident, she said she had expected concrete action rather than continued efforts to formulate guidelines.
“From the incident at Ayawasu up to now, I would have thought that we could see some action taken, that it wouldn’t just be another—the guidelines, still parties still trying to get a guideline,” she said.
Calls for stronger monitoring
Ms Addo also called for a more structured approach to monitoring internal elections, saying the party should ensure that its field officers and monitoring committees had clear responsibilities and systems for reporting suspected breaches.
Responding to comments by NDC National Deputy General Secretary Rashid Tanko, who referred to officers deployed to monitor the elections, she said the party’s monitoring arrangements needed to be sufficiently organised to establish what happened during the polls.
She noted that CDD-Ghana’s assessment was partly dependent on media reports from areas its officers could not visit.
Ms Addo said the party should therefore strengthen its own monitoring mechanisms to ensure that concerns about vote-buying were properly documented and investigated.
