Transformational and progressive political parties are key pillars of a democratic society that delivers development. Parties are important for aggregating interests, mobilizing citizens for political actions including voting in public elections, molding political leaders as well as developing and promoting policy choices. To do that parties need resources. The challenge for many political parties in developing countries like Ghana is that the ways in which these resources are mobilized tend to undercut the party’s role in consolidating democracy and delivering development. In this Bulletin, the Center summarizes its research on political party financing in Ghana and its implications for tackling corruption. The Bulletin also lists a number of ways in which the problem can be tackled.

The issue of the linkages between the way parties finance campaigns and operations in Ghana and inability of governing parties to tackle corruption has been a recurring debate since the country was ushered into the Fourth Republic as a multi-party democracy. The debate was recently triggered by Mr. Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, a former Minister of Youth and Sports and an executive member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in a rare public confession that the failure of successive governments to effectively fight corruption is due to the existence of political party financiers, who seek to recoup financial investments made in political parties during election campaign.