Criminalising vote-buying is a legal dead end, says Akwatia MP
As Ghana’s political class grapples with fresh allegations of vote-buying within party primaries, one lawmaker is urging a rethink of how the country responds to the problem, and his argument cuts straight to the heart of why he believes criminal prosecution would be a wasted effort.
Bernard Bediako Baidoo, Member of Parliament for Akwatia, has come out strongly against proposals to make political inducement a criminal offence, warning that the legal hurdles involved would render any such attempt dead on arrival. Speaking on the JoyNews AM Show on Wednesday, March 4, the MP did not mince his words.
“If you raise it to the level of a crime, you fail,” he said. “Our Constitution is not a criminal law book. You don’t prove crime by mere words.”
His remarks were made in the context of a brewing controversy surrounding the ongoing National Democratic Congress parliamentary primary in the Ayawaso East Constituency. Reports emerged that the campaign team of aspirant Baba Jamal Mohammed Ahmed distributed 32-inch television sets to delegates, a development that immediately ignited debate about whether such acts constitute vote-buying. Baba Jamal, who was subsequently declared winner of the Ayawaso East by-election on the NDC ticket, has denied any personal involvement in the distribution. When confronted with accounts of delegates leaving with television sets, he reportedly responded, “What is wrong with that?”
For Bediako Baidoo, the incident illustrates precisely why criminalisation would struggle to produce results. He pointed to a fundamental principle in criminal law that prosecutors would find nearly impossible to get around.
“There is no vicarious liability in criminal law,” he explained. “You cannot go and commit something and I am held responsible unless there is evidence linking me to it. Otherwise, you are liable for your own actions.”
The implication, he argued, is that any candidate with even a basic understanding of the law could simply create distance between themselves and whoever is doing the distributing, leaving investigators with little to work with.
“You will never get any candidate who is going for election that will be seen anywhere distributing anything,” he noted. “What if he says he doesn’t know anything about it and it’s just a friend who believes in his vision?”
Rather than pursuing a criminal route that he believes would collapse under evidential strain, the Akwatia MP is calling on Parliament to tackle the issue through targeted legislation, one that is broad enough to rope in third parties acting on a candidate’s behalf.
“If we put it in our books, we can make sure it covers even the person who is not a contestant but sharing in the name of someone,” he said. “But if you raise it to the level of crime, that’s where you fail.”
Bediako Baidoo also pushed back against any suggestion that inducement is a problem confined to one political party. Casting the net wider, he pointed to reports of envelope-sharing during recent New Patriotic Party primaries as evidence of a deeply entrenched, cross-party culture.
“In the whole country, envelopes were shared, some with GH¢1,000, some GH¢500. Who doesn’t know this?” he remarked, noting that political actors have long developed ways of reframing such gestures to sidestep accountability.
His position is not one of inaction. The MP was careful to clarify that he supports addressing the issue, just through a smarter, more enforceable mechanism.
“I’m not saying we shouldn’t do anything about it,” he stressed. “But let’s regulate it properly.”
With electoral integrity increasingly under the microscope as Ghana’s political parties gear up for future contests, the debate over how best to police internal democracy is only likely to grow louder. For Bediako Baidoo, the answer lies not in the courtroom, but in the legislature.
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