Swiss Chocolate, Belgian Chocolate, French chocolate–all are known worldwide for using excellent produce; however, the quality is not the only thing they have in common. No cacao is actually harvested in any of those countries. The production of cocoa beans requires a hotter, humid, tropical climate. It is also important to mention that, similar to many other markets, the chocolate market also sustains itself through the underpaid labour of many families. As you may also suspect, considering the multinational levels of chocolate production; cultivating, harvesting, cleaning, fermenting, exporting and processing the raw material, etc; the primary production sector is crucial and exploited. Thus, those families typically pay the price of their underpayment with their time, labour, and vote. In the supply chain of chocolate manufacturers, before chocolate becomes chocolate, cocoa is first used to supply a more political chain. In producing countries such as Ghana and Ivory Coast, cocoa constitutes 7% to 20% of their GDP. In Ivory Coast, it constitutes 40% of their exports. Being such a dominant market in those countries, bargaining welfare for voting is a political tactic observed in past elections. That means many candidates persuade voters by utilizing a campaign of improving livelihoods through the control of cocoa pricing. Let's take a look at practical examples:

Ivory Coast

In the 2025 elections, the main promise centered on correcting cocoa prices; match prices to market. After the global market peaked, a massive global surplus caused cocoa prices to crash. Thus, the president at the time, seeking a fourth term, set the highest farmgate price for cocoa. However, due to the market implications, Ivorian beans were overpriced. After taking office, and continuing his fourth term, the price for beans was cut in half, and a government program to buy some excess beans was launched to correct the surplus issue, directly impacting farmers. The political promise, however, was not to avoid a market crash, but to keep a higher price of beans. From an economics point of view, it is essential to get ahead of a possible crash; still, from the perspectives of voters, this point was not emphasized. Politics is a game of wording and rhetoric. Thus, those farmers expressed disappointment, reflecting the government's inability to keep their promises. Disappointment, however, is an understatement compared to the real consequences farmers such as Firmir Coulibaly face. Coulibaly stated that "Producers are dying in poverty even though they have crops. They have no money for medicine or food."

Ghana

In Ghana, during the 2024 campaign, candidates competed over one number: the cocoa price. In opposition to the president of the time, candidate Mahama promised what every farmer had been waiting to hear: that the state would guarantee cocoa farmers 70% of the export value of their beans.

The promise was deliverable, because in Ghana the farmer's price is not a market outcome. It is a decision. Once a year, a committee chaired by the Finance Minister fixes what every buyer in the country must pay farmers, as a fixed share of the export earnings Ghana's cocoa board secures through forward contracts. The government cannot control the world price of cocoa; the only lever it owns is the farmer's part of it, which is exactly why that part is political.

The same way it happened in Ivory Coast, the world price fell. After the election, bean prices dropped sharply, lawmakers criticized the government publicly, and farmers who had voted on a price watched it shrink under a president who had promised to protect it.

Why is this relevant to you?

Let’s digest the meaning of chocolate. Chocolate is simply one example; every industry has its bitter side. Ghana is cocoa, Brazil is soy, Ethiopia is coffee, etc. Same pattern, different products. Wherever a commodity feeds a state, somebody's survival becomes a bargaining chip, and the consumer sees only a price tag.

Here is what the cocoa farmer teaches us about our own democracies. Nothing in this system is illegal. Poverty is not illegal, pricing a promise into an election is not illegal, and letting citizens "fulfill" democracy by voting to survive is not illegal. A state does not need to directly shoot its people to weaponize them. It is enough to control the conditions of their survival and wait for hunger to do the persuading. The scandal is precisely that all of this is legal.

So the question is not whether you should vote. It is what your vote is worth, and to whom. In Ghana, a farmer's vote is priced at a share of a tonne of cocoa, set by a committee the week before an election. Yours is being priced too, in campaign strategies you will never read. The difference between you and the farmer is not the game. It is the stack of conditions that separate you and the consequences of your vote. And the stack, as the cocoa belt learned this year, can thin.