Buying out the political support of the poor with Ghana’s leap programme: An empirical fact or fiction?

Abstract

There is a consensus around the view that pro-poor programmes constitute an effective response to extreme poverty. However, available evidence indicates that the political class in many nascent democracies use such programmes to extract electoral returns from the poor beneficiaries. The Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP) programme attempts to support the poor to leap out of poverty. Using concurrent mixed methods approach, this article examined the extent to which LEAP benefits get to the poor, and also to ascertain if the recipients feel compelled to reciprocate government’s generosity by supporting the incumbent electorally. The results suggest that the selection of LEAP communities and beneficiaries are motivated by partisan consideration. Thus, politicians use LEAP to reward party supporters. It concludes that LEAP benefits constitute insufficient motivation to swing the political support of beneficiaries toward the incumbent since most of them were affiliated to either NPP or NDC prior to their selection.