Managing Election- Relation Violence for Democratic Stability in Ghana leadership. A pattern emerges in a survey of the Daily Graphic newspapers in the election years; 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 and indicates a general trend of political leaders of the NPP and NDC especially promising the electorate better jobs, youth employment, good roads, a curb on corruption, and an all­inclusive government. However, once they attain political power, they are unable to roll out these populist promises effectively. For example, Prof. Mills on the campaign trail in 2008 stated that when voted into office, prices of petroleum products would be further reduced, adding that the then incumbent NPP government was insensitive to the plight of the people(Daily Graphic, 2008). When he won political power, however, petroleum prices rather went up, leading to protests in parts of the country. This has reinforced the perception that promises made on the campaign platform are merely meant to gather in 69 votes and not so much to improve the welfare of the electorate. In short, politicians in Ghana have over the years gained a reputation of not being true to their promises and generally taking the electorate for granted. When it comes to the complex area of funding for political parties, because Ghana's Constitution does not allow the state to fund political parties,'clients' are identified who can help the parties to compete with the incumbent government since there is, invariably, abuse of incumbency to divert state funds for party 70 gain. In such an environment, the'client' is often rewarded when the government comes into power with lucrative contracts, positions in government, etc. However, most of these clients 69 To buttress this point is the exploitation of the youth. In this particular instance, Muslim youth were enlisted by one parliamentary aspirant with the promise of jobs in order to win political power in the Nima Zongo area. After the elections, when the Muslim youth approached the MP, they were told to bring their certificates, the lack of which the MP had conveniently not considered when he contacted them initially.(KAIPTC/FES 2012). 70 Incumbents generally have access to state resources, presence on the state-owned media, private contributions from businessmen in the expectation of winning tenders and contracts. The opposition, on the other hand, is dependent on the goodwill of sympathetic'big men'(Nugent, 2001). 193