Els: MBN360 News
Renowned legal scholar and fellow of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, has called for replacing Ghana’s internal party delegate system with a nationwide primary framework, warning that the current model poses a serious threat to democratic governance under the Fourth Republic.
His intervention comes amid renewed public debate on vote buying allegations linked to recent internal elections within both the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress.
Professor Asare argued that the greatest danger facing Ghana’s democracy today is not rooted in unresolved ideological disputes from earlier political eras, but rather in the structural weaknesses of how political parties select their candidates.
In his assessment, the delegate system has quietly but persistently eroded democratic values, creating what he described as a hidden assault on political pluralism. While the system preserves the outward appearance of competition, he contended that it strips elections of their substantive meaning long before citizens are allowed to vote.
“Under the delegate model, political power is compressed into the hands of a small, predictable group. Political competition shifts away from persuading citizens and toward courting delegates.”Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, Renowned Legal Scholar and CDD-Ghana Fellow
In such an environment, ideas and policy visions lose their central role, while inducements, logistics, and patronage become decisive tools. According to him, elections are transformed from contests for public legitimacy into exercises in internal capture.
This structural distortion, he noted, has far-reaching consequences for democratic representation. Candidates often emerge not because they command broad public confidence, but because they are able to influence or mobilize a narrow electoral college.
Millions of voters are effectively sidelined during the most critical stage of the political process, only being invited to endorse choices they had little role in shaping. Over time, this undermines the principle that political authority should flow from the consent of the governed.
Normalization of Transactional Politics
Professor Asare further observed that the delegate system normalizes transactional politics. He describes the phenomenon popularly referred to as cocoa season not as a metaphor, but as an incentive structure embedded within the system itself.
When a few thousand delegates carry more weight than millions of citizens, the use of money, favors, and inducements becomes a rational campaign strategy rather than a moral deviation. This, he argued, corrodes ethical standards and blurs the line between legitimate political engagement and corrupt practice.
Another consequence, he warned, is growing citizen alienation. Voters are repeatedly called upon to participate in general elections without having meaningful agency in the selection of candidates.
Participation without influence, he said, breeds cynicism, apathy, and disengagement. Over time, this weakens trust in democratic institutions and fuels a sense that politics is an elite affair detached from ordinary citizens.
Despite these concerns, Professor Asare acknowledged that even incremental reforms can make a difference. He maintained that any step that widens participation and reduces the excessive power of delegates should be encouraged.
This includes not only structural adjustments within parties, but also clear and public condemnation of inducement politics by party leadership. According to him, such condemnations help reset norms and signal that practices associated with cocoa season are democratic defects rather than clever campaign tactics.
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He placed particular emphasis on the role of presidential leadership in shaping public discourse. When a sitting President speaks out against delegate inducement, Professor Asare argued, the issue is elevated from a partisan grievance to a constitutional concern.
Presidential speech, in his view, carries agenda-setting power that can reframe public understanding and influence behavior, even in contexts where enforcement mechanisms remain imperfect.
Addressing debates around accountability, Professor Asare drew a distinction between the recall of an official following a legitimate political contest and a recall linked to vote buying.
“The former is an accountability mechanism inherent in democratic competition. The latter is a correction for a corrupted selection process. The difference is evident to those willing to see it and predictably obscured by those who prefer not to.”Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, Renowned Legal Scholar and CDD-Ghana Fellow
He noted that although partisans may attempt to blur this distinction, the difference is evident to those committed to democratic integrity. Professor Asare cautioned against dismissing these measures as merely symbolic.
He argued that meaningful norm change rarely begins with sweeping reforms. Instead, it is built through small, repeated actions that gradually accumulate moral and institutional weight.
Condemnations, rule adjustments, transparency requirements, and efforts to widen participation, he said, must be consistently reinforced until they harden into accepted practice.
Adopting National Primary
Looking ahead, Professor Asare outlined what he considers the most viable long-term solution. He proposed a system in which citizens are allowed to declare a political affiliation alongside voter registration.
Political parties would then select their general election candidates through a national primary day, enabling registered affiliates within political parties to vote directly.
Such a framework, he argued, would replace elite gatekeeping with mass participation, make inducement logistically impractical, restore legitimacy to candidates, and better align internal party democracy with constitutional democracy.
Most importantly, he said, a national primary system would return political competition to its proper foundation, which is convincing citizens rather than capturing delegates.
In his view, democracy cannot survive on ritual alone. It depends on institutions that reward persuasion over patronage and participation over proximity to power.
Professor Asare’s comments follow recent allegations of vote buying during the NPP presidential primary and the NDC parliamentary primary in Ayawaso East ahead of a by-election.
In response, the NDC publicly condemned the incident and established a committee to investigate the matter, while President John Dramani Mahama recalled Baba Jamal from his position as Ghana’s High Commissioner to Nigeria.
These developments, he suggested, highlight both the urgency of reform and the importance of confronting systems that quietly undermine democratic pluralism from within.
