As a condition for permitting party members to run in parliamentary primaries, some political party leaders have drawn criticism from Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the majority leader in parliament, for making ostentatious requests, such as those for cars and land.
Such cases of vote buying were denounced by Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, who also emphasized the necessity of addressing this problem in the nation’s electoral process.
“You have people coming to you to tell you that buy a car for us before we vote for you,” the Majority Leader said on Wednesday, February 7, during a leadership engagement with the Parliamentary Press Corps. Particularly the party leadership, who demand cars before letting you compete or even land… we ought to be honest.
The Suame MP also suggested that political parties reevaluate these policies and perhaps conduct introspection to do away with these demands.
Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu emphasized that either all party members should be granted the ability to vote or the system should be changed to more closely resemble well-established democracies.
“My suggestion is that the parties reflect and possibly do away with this, as it is in well-established democracies.We might need to move further downstream to allow every party member who carries a card to vote if we wish to maintain this communist system.
The Majority Leader also emphasized the significance of continuing to participate in parliamentary business and warned against apathy among MPs who lost their parliamentary primaries.
