'You need GHc4million to win parliamentary election, rising cost threatens Ghana's democracy' – Prof. Prempeh

Executive Director of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Professor Henry Kwasi Prempeh, has expressed concern over the escalating cost of elections in Ghana, warning that money is increasingly becoming the defining factor in political competition.

According to him, the growing influence of money in politics has been a longstanding concern for CDD-Ghana, but recent research shows the situation has reached alarming levels.

“Since 2004, we have tracked closely the steadily growing concern of the intersection of money and political power.

This is not a new concern for us. But it has become, over the course of our research, an urgent one,” he stated.

Speaking in an interview with the Daily Graphic, Prof. Prempeh highlighted the dramatic rise in the cost of contesting parliamentary elections over the past decade.

“In 2012, the estimated cost of winning a parliamentary seat in Ghana (primaries and general election) stood at GHc124,000. By 2020, that same seat cost approximately GHc4 million (app. $350,000), which includes the cost of what is called 'nurturing the constituency'. That is a 3,125 per cent increase in eight years. This is the cost of seeking to represent the people in Parliament,” he stated.

He noted that the situation at the presidential level was equally troubling, with the cost of entering party primaries rising sharply in recent years.

“The average nomination and filing fees alone for presidential primaries across our two major parties, the NPP and NDC, rose from GH¢72,500 in 2016 to GH¢440,000 in 2024; that is a 507 per cent increase in less than a decade. And let us be clear, those are merely the fees to enter the primary contest, before a single rally is held, or a single campaign message is broadcast. A credible run for the presidency, by the time it reaches a general election, demands in the region of US$1OO million,” he pointed out.

Prof. Prempeh argued that the soaring costs were not accidental but reflected a deeper structural shift in the way politics is conducted in Ghana and across Africa.

“They are what the system now routinely requires. And when a system routinely requires this much of those who would enter it, it is no longer selecting leaders based on conviction, competence or public trust. It is selecting based on capital,” he said.

He described the trend as the financialisation of politics, explaining that democratic competition is increasingly being driven by financial resources rather than ideas or the interests of citizens.

According to him, this transformation has changed the nature of political participation.

“When this migration happens, political participation is no longer organised primarily around the aggregation of citizen interests and the contest between ideas about how to govern a country well. It is organised around the mobilisation, deployment and the subsequent recovery of financial resources,” he said.

Prof. Prempeh further observed that candidates are now judged more by their financial strength than by the quality of their policies or leadership abilities.

He warned that political parties risk abandoning their traditional role of representing citizens' interests and instead becoming vehicles for raising and recovering campaign resources.

“Political parties cease to function as platforms for translating citizen preferences into government policy.

“They become, instead, machines for distributing resources to those who can deliver electoral outcomes and then recouping those resources once the state is within reach,” he added.

He reiterated that CDD-Ghana remains committed to promoting democratic governance, electoral integrity and inclusive development through research, policy advocacy and efforts to combat political corruption.

According to him, the organisation was founded on the belief that democracy flourishes only when citizens are genuinely empowered to participate in decisions that affect their lives, rather than when political competition is determined by financial influence.