Member of parliament for Tamale North, Alhassan Suhuyini, has revealed that the issue of vote buying by politicians in the country has seemingly become a permanent feature in Ghana’s politics.
According to him, it is a worrying phenomenon the manner in which the habit of inducing voters to vote for a particular party or candidate has creeped into politics. He indicated that it is not just enough to recognize the problem, but find ways of resolving them.
Mr Suhuyini stated that it is only when the “buyer decides not to buy and the seller decides not to sell” will Ghana get rid of the problem. This, he explained, is because if one has a commodity to sell, no matter how useless a product is, someone may buy.
“So, it has become like permanent feature with our elections that you need to induce voters to get the outcome that you want and that is why I am saying it is important for all of us to look [at] ourselves in the mirror and ask the hard questions: How are we contributing to this decay? When there is vote-buying, it means there is vote-selling. So, who is guilty? How do you resolve that?”
Alhassan Suhuyini
Speaker of parliament commended on elections comments
Mr Suhuyini noted that comments made by the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, condemning the monetization of Ghana’s politics is a step in the right direction. However, he highlighted that it is important for all to find out what role they play in contributing to the problem, so that Ghanaians can apply breaks where necessary or improve the performance.
“For example, Speaker Bagbin often has said that our elections have become auction, they are no longer elections as it’s supposed to be… It is clear [from the Assin North] that something fishy is going on… These things have become normal features in our elections, whether intra-party or general elections. We heard reports of same in Kumawu when we had the by-elections. The NDC just finished its elections at the primaries, some candidates accused each other of doing the same thing.”
Alhassan Suhuyini
Elaborating on the issues raised by Speaker Bagbin, the Tamale North legislator revealed that it is “very difficult to disagree” with the concerns raised as they are genuine. He emphasized that they are from discussions that are heard everywhere.
“Too many people, too often, are beginning to question the democracy and how well it has served us. I think that Speaker Bagbin deserves commendation for his boldness sometimes to speak his mind about some of these very important issues. Sometimes, he may not even come across as sounding politically correct. But at least he does it such that it provokes talks and debates which if well controlled, can lead to improvement.”
Alhassan Suhuyini
Despite the seeming “decay” in Ghana’s politics, Mr Suhuyini indicated that death of democracy does not only relate to the Ghanaian democracy. He averred that it’s a worldwide discussion and there are many publication and research work on whether or not the democracy as is known, is decaying.
“There are many reasons why people are beginning to question democracy. I will say that yes, our democracy may have problems, problems with honesty, problems with truthfulness, the kind of representation that we get from our leaders, problems relating to corruption, confidence in our politicians and many more. I can also say there have been significant gains as a result of the democracy that we decided to embrace in the early 90’s…”
Alhassan Suhuyini
Furthermore, Mr Suhuyini revealed that when problems of the decay of democracy arises, there is the need for Ghanaians to be reflective and find out how all persons have contributed to its woes through actions.
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