{"id":114681,"date":"2026-02-09T17:56:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T17:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=114681"},"modified":"2026-02-09T17:56:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T17:56:30","slug":"vote-buying-has-become-a-soft-culture-in-ghanaian-politics-political-analyst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=114681","title":{"rendered":"Vote-buying has become a \u2018soft culture\u2019 in Ghanaian politics \u2013 Political analyst"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Political analyst and Executive Director of the African Institute of Strategic Studies, Dr Jonathan Asante Otchere, has raised concern over the growing normalisation of vote-buying and voter inducement in Ghana\u2019s political space, describing it as a \u201csoft culture\u201d that is gradually becoming entrenched.<\/p>\n

Speaking in an interview on JoyNews\u2019 The Pulse <\/strong>on Monday, February 9, Dr Otchere said the practice of offering incentives to delegates and voters during internal party elections has become widespread, despite broad public condemnation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is not a single soul within our body politics that will say that they agree when it comes to this voter inducement, whether you call it vote buying or whichever way you look at it, it has gradually become a soft culture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dr Otchere\u2019s comments come amid allegations of inducements during the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Ayawaso East parliamentary primaries, which have prompted the party to establish a committee to investigate the matter.<\/p>\n

He commended the NDC\u2019s decision, describing it as a rare and important step by a major political party at the national level.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is probably the very first time that the two main parties\u2026 at the national level have decided to look into this particular issue,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

He said the move signals that the party frowns upon such conduct and recognises the need to protect internal electoral credibility.<\/p>\n

Dr Otchere cautioned against treating vote-buying allegations as the actions of a single person, suggesting instead that inducement has become systemic within political contests.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not a single person who got involved in such a situation,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

He argued that deeper and broader networks may be responsible for the persistence of the problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther pockets are deeper than others and that is probably the more reason why this has become a problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Political analyst and Executive Director of the African Institute of Strategic Studies, Dr Jonathan Asante Otchere, has raised concern over the growing normalisation of vote-buying and voter inducement in Ghana\u2019s political space, describing it as a \u201csoft culture\u201d that is gradually becoming entrenched.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16640,16641,117,10,9,240],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-jonathan-asante-otchere","category-ghanaian-politics","category-news","category-politics","category-popular","category-vote-buying"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}