An aspirant for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP)’s 2020 Parliamentary ticket for the Mfantseman Constituency has given his approval to the subculture of bribing party delegates for votes during internal elections.
According to Mr. James Korsah Brown, giving delegates money as part of campaigns for Party tickets is just a way of showing appreciations to the delegates for taking the time to exercise their own political rights.
”I don’t want the phenomenon to be like politicians are buying delegates and I don’t believe any human being can be bought but you can only appreciate their good work .”
According to him, it is necessary and befitting that delegates are paid money because among others, they travel long distances to cast votes.
Mr. Korsah Brown will come across for many as the devil’s own advocate because for a long time, the national consensus has been that bribery and corruption has become the bane of Ghana’s democracy.
Experts point out that “moneycracy” at the party level is what often translates to corruption at the top of the political ladder since politicians who pay their way to office often defray their debt by stealing in public office.
But James Korsah Brown encouraged his colleague aspirants to give delegates more money because it helps the delegates to easily to transport themselves to voting centers when it is time to vote.
Meanwhile, he has claimed that the reason he is paying delegates for their votes is not to undermine the incumbent MP he is seeking to replace, Ekow Kwansah Hayford, but so that he can become MP and eliminate poverty from his area.
Interestingly, MP’s do not undertake development in governance in Ghana; they are legislators who make law. The people who undertake projects are MMDCEs and those ones, they are appointed by the President.