The Majority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has rebuked certain political party leaders for their extravagant demands, including requests for cars and land, as conditions for allowing party members to contest in Parliamentary primaries.
Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu condemned such instances of vote buying, stressing the importance of addressing this issue within the country’s electoral process.
During a leadership engagement with the Parliamentary Press Corps on Wednesday, February 7, the Majority Leader stated, “You have people coming to you to tell you that buy a car for us before we vote for you. Especially the parties’ leadership, they ask for cars before they allow you to contest, even land…we should be real.”
The Suame MP also suggested that political parties reconsider such practices, proposing introspection to eliminate these demands potentially.
Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu emphasized the need for a shift towards a system resembling established democracies or expanding voting rights to all card-bearing party members.
“My own proposition is that the parties should introspect and perhaps scrap this thing as it is in established democracies…If we want to continue to live with this communist arrangement then, we will perhaps have to go further downstream to enable every card-bearing member of the party to vote.”
