Our political parties have been hijacked by people with money – Dr Kobby Mensah

A lecturer at the University of Ghana Business School, Dr Kobby Mensah says politicians in Ghana win power with money instead of their ability to identify the challenges the country is facing and come up with the needed solutions.

According to him, politicians influence delegates at the primaries with money to get the needed vote and this affects the national elections at the end of the day.

He said “Our political parties have been hijacked by the people who have the money. Factors that will determine electability will not be considered in the primaries. Why because in as much as you think the party will elect an individual who would be acceptable by the state to be elected as the president it doesn’t happen because people actually pump in money”.

“We’ve heard we’ve seen instances where delegates are split so if somebody is going for elections where you have delegates of 20 and an individual is able to sponsor 11, you know the calculation, he can sponsor 11 the rest of the 9 can go to hell so you know that he’s going to get the vote, the maximum,” Dr Mensah added.

He said even though former President Kufuor’s competence was questioned ahead of the 2000 general elections due to his past failures, he turned out to be the “ultimate consensus” as he was able to put together the right brains to get the work done adding that “these are qualities that usually, voters be it delegates or the voters, in general, will actually look for unfortunately in our parties to be brute that is not happening”.

“Those who have money are those who are able to convince people to vote for them,” he stated.