A political communications lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) has lamented the normalcy attached to vote-buying in the country’s politics.

Zakakria Tanko stated that the indifference attached to the electoral misconduct has given the perpetrators some confidence to openly confess to engaging in the act.

The lawyer speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, Monday described how many politicians feel the need to give voters some form of inducement to gain their mandate.

His comments come on the back of allegations of vote-buying and confessions of same by some delegations during the New Patriotic Party (NPP) recently ended parliamentary primaries.

During the just ended NPP primaries, there were reports of candidates who induced voters to vote for them with items such as food, pieces of cloth, home appliances among others.

“Clearly, we shouldn’t be happy about it and we need to really start dealing with the situation.

“Monetisation is now becoming like a password but should we really accept that because we know the consequences of monetizing our political dispensation,” he said.

According to him, the electoral laws against inducement and bribery refer to public elections.

Mr Tanko called for reforms in the electoral commission’s laws to deal with such issues.

“The EC may have to look in their electoral law and give it a purposive outlook instead of just looking at it literally,” the lawyer counselled.

Speaking further, he added that such malpractices leads to electing the only people who have a financial advantage into parliament.

“Some of these political actors think they are big but they are really susceptible to some of these electorates. They are vulnerable and the vulnerability is increasingly widening and if we don’t deal with that situation, it is going to be bad,” Mr Tanko bemoaned.

However, he called upon the NPP to sanction the culprits with their internal mechanism to serve as a deterrent to its members and an example to other political parties.

“How much do people earn when they go into parliament that they put so much money into getting there?” he said.