A pre-election survey conducted by the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) shows the governing National Democratic Congress is the most guilty of buying votes ahead of the 2016 elections in December.
A total of 51% of Ghanaians surveyed believe the John Mahama led government has been buying vote followed closely by Nana Akufo-Addo’s New Patriotic Party with 32%.
The results of the survey comes at a time both the president and his wife Lordina Mahama have been accused by the anti-corruption group Ghana Integrity Initiative of buying votes and abusing incumbency.
Early this week, campaign spokesperson of the governing National Democratic Congress Joyce Bawa Mogtari confirmed to Joy News the president has been donating outboard motors to fishermen as part of his campaign tour of the Western Region.
The donation she explained was to help the fishermen in their line of work but the Executive Director of GII Mrs. Linda Ofori- Kwafo told Joy News the action by the president is nothing more than buying votes.
Worse still, she said the president was abusing incumbency by using state resources and taxes in distributing freebies to prospective voters with a little over three months to go for election 2016.
The NPP has not been left out of the distribution with pictures of the wife of the NPP flagbearer Rebecca Akufo-Addo trending on social media as she busily distributes some items to prospective voters.
Explaining the rationale for the survey, to Joy News’ Raymond Acquah, the Governance and Legal Policy Officer at CDD Kojo Pumpuni Asante said they wanted to “track the incidence of vote buying” and to find out whether people are offered monies.
According to him, a chunk of the respondents confirmed that the parties have been buying vote.
What is more, the survey found that Ghanaians were willing to sell their votes, Asante confirmed.
“They also say some of them are prepared to sell their votes. So it is not just a question about the parties.
“It is a problem for our democracy and a problem for the public,” he stated. The survey was conducted between July 2-18, 2016 with a sample size of 2,400 people across 163 districts of the country.
Apart from vote buying the survey also sought to find out if the electorate had confidence in the Electoral Commission.
A total of 63% of the electorate believe the EC is neutral in the performance of its duties, however the same percentage number of people believe their votes may not be counted.
It is not clear what may account for the contrasting opinions by the respondents on this issue.
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