Examining Electorates’ Perception on the State Funding Political Parties Activities in Ghana

Abstract

It is widely recognised that representative democracy could not function without political parties, which provide a critical link between free civil society, effective and accountable government. Therefore, this study examined the perception of electorates on the state to fund political parties in Ghana. Descriptive survey technique and simple random sampling were used to select respondents for the study. The sample size was eight hundred with interview and questionnaire as the research instrument. Findings revealed that electorates’ understanding of the accurate role and functions of political parties is very good. From the study, all the respondents (100%) were able to state a number of important functions of political parties and 95% of the respondents’ immediate response to the suggestion of state funding of political parties was that they would not be happy and agree that state money be used to fund political parties’ activities because there are other equally crucial state priorities that need to be considered presently. The study concluded that Efficient, equitable and sustainable party financing is necessary for establishing strong democratic government and recommended that public support for state funding of political parties is very poor therefore citizens’ confidence for state funding needs to be established and there must be education for political parties’ members to be card-bearing members to ensuring smooth payment of membership dues.

Keywords: Political parties, electorates’ perception, parties funding, democracy, Ghana