Editorial by Ghanaian Times: Can GII monitoring system stop politicians’ electoral abuse

Politicians and their parties in Ghana have been enjoying for far too long a period in which no individual, groups, or institu­tions in the country have made any serious attempt publicly to question them about campaign spending, abuse of incumben­cy, and campaign financing.

In the circumstances, the politicians and their parties have had a field day doing their own things in these areas with­out any restraint.

Therefore, the project launched to monitor and report on campaign spending, abuse of incumbency, and campaign financing can be a game-changer as it can rein in politicians regarding all the abuse in these areas.

The start of such a project is an initiative by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), in partnership with the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) and the Centre for Democratic Governance (CDD-Ghana) planned to last 10 months.

The Ghanaian Times wishes the project had been launched earlier to capture the periods of picking flagbearers of the parties, particularly by the incumbent New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the leading opposi­tion party National Democrat­ic Congress (NDC).

The whole country has not forgotten the noise made against amounts spent by the flagbearer hopefuls, includ­ing Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the incumbent Vice President (NPP), and former President John Dramani Maha­ma (NDC).

In spite of the absence of the GII initiative then, the Ghanaian Times thinks it is still timely as it is planned to cap­ture campaign spending, abuse of incumbency, and campaign financing ahead of the 2024 general election.

About three months to go to the polls on December 7, this is the time the abuse of incum­bency is so prominent as the party in power is using state resources like a fleet of vehicles, state security, and media more than normally expected but usually done under the guise of performing state duty.

This is a dicey issue but the Ghanaian Times believes the GII has the expertise to decipher which use of state resources, for instance, would constitute abuse of incumbency.

It is the hope of everyone that the GII monitoring sys­tem will be able to generate the envisaged empirical data on the evidence of campaign financing activities and to in­crease public awareness of the role of money in elections and the current campaign financing regime.

In this case, the Ghanaian Times hopes independent can­didates would be monitored.

It is currently an open secret that money given out by political parties and politi­cians influences voting in the country.

The implication is that the choices made by those induced with money are not the true reflection of their wishes.

The result is that the people vote for politicians who easily choose to serve their own in­terest rather than the people.

It is no wonder politicians in the country, to a large extent, do not fulfill campaign prom­ises.

Hopefully, the GII monitor­ing system would check abuse of incumbency, stop money-in­fluenced voting and ensure the true choice of political representatives who practise true democracy by serving the interest of the people.

That way true accountability would be rendered by politi­cians and other state officials for the country’s forward march.