Private legal practitioner Martin Kpebu has examined the conditions that influence the voting patterns of people usually devoid of objectivity and competence of candidates, all other things being equal.
He says the information asymmetry that spells the gap between what the political actors and citizens know is a deficit huge enough to adversely affect the election of leadership in Ghana.
According to him, if the people become abreast with what the political actors know, it will inform their decisions to choose the right persons to leadership.
“For lack of knowledge my people perish right, so when citizens are not that well informed what do you expect, it affects the way they take decisions. So when there is that information asymmetry, being what the political actors know as against what the citizens know. Illiteracy is still a huge problem here and we also know that a lot of government institutions and a lot of things we do in Ghana, they are very opaque. Citizens don’t get enough sunshine, they don’t see exactly what goes on like we say today you hear government can’t account for X amount of money, tomorrow someone will come and whitewash it and say it’s been found, meanwhile, nobody has been able to verify,” he said on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday, May 27, 2023.
He adds that people will choose ethnicity over anything as long as they remain uninformed bearing the ‘Adzepa wɔ fie a, oye’ mindset to wit it is good to keep good things at home.
Meanwhile, he asserts “but when people are more educated that goes down and that’s how come the Free SHS at least despite all of these problems and the rest I am ardent supporter of Free SHS it has helped a lot. So I am expecting that in the coming decades as literacy would have gone up, we will see a downward trend of people who just vote based on ethnic sentiments. And let’s not forget, ethnicity will always reign. It can’t be washed away” citing the Labour and Consecutive parties in the UK as well as the Democrats and Republicans in the United States when it comes to identity politics.
“…you can never wash identity politics away but with more education we can reduce it. And then tied to the education, we talk about the economic prosperity. When people have jobs they are more likely to be independent minded than when they don’t have. So in the current system we are operating, it is high patronage,” he espoused.
The lawyer also spoke about those who have benefited from the government in the midst of the teeming unemployment.
He says those whose economic statuses have been transformed by the government in power through the ‘whom you know’ system will forever remain loyal to such parties.
“…They will continue to vote for those who have turned their lives around so the economy too is very important,” he added.
His comments come on the back of the outcome of the Kumawu by-election where constituents voted for the government in power amid the glaring neglect over the years.
