ELECTIONS BURDENS AND OUTCOMES IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

ABSTRACT

The study examines the burdens and outcomes that elections impose on Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. Conspicuously missing in the literature is the extent to which the level of development and literacy moderate the effect of election on government expenditure; and complexity of ballot paper and marginality on the proportion of invalid vote in SSA. Using macrodata from the World Bank and other sources, the study employed the System Generalised Method of Moment (GMM), Fixed Effect, Random Effect, and Hausman-Taylor (HT) models to test the hypotheses. We find statistical evidence to support the claim that level of development and literacy moderate the effect of election on government expenditure; and complexity of ballot paper and marginality on rejected ballots. The study recommends that governments of SSA countries must initiate policies that ensure strong fiscal discipline during electoral and non-electoral years. In addition, governments, candidates, political parties and other civil society organisations must intensify civic education to reduce the rate of rejected ballots in SSA.