By Akua Barden
Ghana woke up on February 9, 2026, to a familiar but uncomfortable conversation on Radio Ghana. It was not new information. It was not shocking. That, perhaps, is the most troubling part.
Vote buying and selling, once whispered about, is now spoken of openly, confidently and almost casually. What was once considered abhorrent misconduct has quietly become a culture.
The interview laid it bare. Sections 240 and 241 of Ghana’s Criminal Code clearly criminalise both the buying and selling of votes. Yet, year after year, election after election, these laws sit untouched, not repealed, not amended, simply ignored. In that silence, impunity has grown.
When people can openly exchange money for votes without fear of arrest, investigation or prosecution, the message is clear: the law exists on paper, not in practice. Criminality, when tolerated long enough, stops looking like crime and starts looking like tradition.
The danger goes far beyond party primaries or by-elections. At its core, vote buying replaces merit with money. It shifts leadership from competence to proficiency in generosity. We are no longer choosing who can lead best, but who can pay the most. “Monetocracy” has displaced meritocracy.
Even more worrying is the silence around the source of this money. When voters stop asking where campaign funds come from, they leave the door open for individuals with questionable, even criminal, sources of wealth to buy power. Once in office, such individuals do not govern in the public interest; they govern to protect their activities, their money, their networks and their gains.
This weakens democracy at its foundation. Leadership becomes transactional. Policy is compromised. Public trust erodes. The polity becomes almost non-existent.
The interview also raised a hard but necessary question: what, exactly, are Ghana’s anti-corruption institutions doing?
The laws already exist. No new legislation is required. No constitutional amendment is needed. Enforcement is the issue. The Office of the Special Prosecutor, the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and the Ghana Police Service all have clear mandates. Yet since 2019, reports of repeated public violations have largely been met with promises to investigate vote buying, with no meaningful prosecutions following.
Announcements are made. Media discussions flare up. A few days pass. The country moves on. The cycle repeats.
If institutions announce investigations and consistently deliver nothing, the threat of being under the microscope stops being a deterrent. It becomes background noise. Criminals do not fear press releases; they fear consequences.
Parliament must also be careful not to overstep while trying not to appear underperforming. Calls by a parliamentary caucus to annul election results may sound decisive, but legally they are weak. Criminal acts require proof established through proper investigation. Parliament cannot substitute itself for investigators or the courts.
Its real power lies elsewhere, oversight, summoning institutions, demanding timelines, reports and outcomes, and asking hard questions about why laws are not being enforced and who is responsible for that failure. More importantly, as representatives of the people, members of Parliament must demand the outcomes of promised investigations.
The more practical approach is investigation first, evidence second, prosecution third. Anything else risks deepening public cynicism and weakening already fragile trust in political institutions.
The long-term consequences of ignoring vote buying are severe. Democracies do not collapse overnight; they decay slowly. Institutions lose credibility. Voters lose faith. Eventually, leadership loses legitimacy.
Internationally, the damage is just as real. Perceptions of corruption affect investor confidence, diplomatic standing and Ghana’s reputation as a stable democracy. When elections are widely believed to be bought rather than earned, the value of the ballot is diminished, both at home and abroad.
Perhaps the most alarming sign is how ordinary citizens now speak. When voters openly say they will only vote for whoever pays them, or that they expect handouts and will take them while still voting as they choose, it signals that the moral line has shifted. A crime has been normalised. And when society accepts criminal behaviour as normal, enforcement becomes politically inconvenient and morally confusing.
Ghana still has a choice: enforce existing laws, strengthen institutions through action rather than speeches, prosecute cases thoroughly and publicly, and restore the fear of consequences.
Democracy does not survive on laws alone. It survives on the willingness to apply them, especially when it is uncomfortable, politically costly or unpopular.
If vote buying continues unchecked, Ghana may still hold elections, but elections alone do not make a democracy. Trust does. And trust, once lost, is far harder to buy back than any vote.
