Review electoral laws on assemblies - DCE

Zabzugu (N/R), Aug. 18, GNA - Alhaji Yakubu Bukari, Zabzugu-Tatale District Chief Executive, has called for a review of the electoral laws to reserve a percentage of the seats in the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies for women.

He said women should in addition, be supported financially in their campaign and participation in capacity-building workshops. Alhaji Bukari made the call when addressing a day's capacity-building workshop for 60 aspiring women contesting the September 12 Metropolitan, Municipal, District Assembly and Unit Committee elections, at Zabzugu.

ActionAid International, Ghana, in partnership with Song Taba, a Yendi-based NGO organised the workshop, which was attended by chiefs and opinion leaders in the district.

Topics treated at the workshop included: Lobbying, public speaking, community mobilization skills and District Assembly concept. The DCE noted that women represented about 51 per cent of the country's population but: "This segment of our population, in the majority, is not well represented in politics at the local and national levels".

Alhaji Bukari said statistics available indicated that out of the 138 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives in the country, only eleven were women, representing less than 10 per cent. He said in the Northern Region, there were only three women out of the 18 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives while out of the 18 assemblies there was only a woman appointed a Presiding Member.

The DCE attributed the low level of women participation in politics to socio-cultural and economic factors, that had served as a barrier for women "to venture into politics".

Mr. Michael Lumor, North/East Programme Manager of ActionAid Ghana, said the workshop was to train potential women for leadership positions and urged chiefs and opinion leaders to support more women to be elected to the assemblies, area and local councils in the district. He said: "It is the hope of ActionAid to see Ghanaian women growing in confidence, skills and knowledge that would help them to take decisions and participate effectively in decision-making that affect their livelihoods".

CDD: Electoral process for district level elections going smoothly

Accra, Aug. 18, GNA - The electoral process towards the impending District Level Elections is going on smoothly, but low patronage and general disinterest continue to dog it.

"On the whole the electoral process has gone smoothly. No incidents of disruption and violence have been recorded from anywhere," the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) noted in its third press statement on the pre-election environment.

"The political parties have visibly stayed out of the process," it said.

CDD urged the Electoral Commission (EC) and the Government to consider reviewing the structures to make them more viable and attractive in the future to well-meaning citizens at the local level.

"We call for remuneration and motivation for those who have chosen to stand. The Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment must begin to consider what to do with unit committees that will not have elected members after the September 12 elections." CDD said it continued to notice sluggishness and lack of popular interest in the preparatory activities ahead of the elections.

"Civic/voter education is yet to reach acceptable levels; the Electoral Commission is doing all it can under difficult resource constraints to process all the candidates for the district assemblies and the unit committees in time for platform mounting and the elections."

It said among the electorate, enthusiasm was low or non-existent, particularly in the large cities and urban areas. CDD said Unit Committee nominations were more severely affected by lack of popular response.

According to the regulations, a total of 10 candidates must be elected for each unit committee and no election can be conducted if there are less than 10 candidates.

However, CDD said, when nominations finally closed and the EC posted final nomination lists in the communities, it became clear that elections would not be conducted in a great number of units. Some areas recorded nil nominations.

CDD noted that nominations for district assembly elections fared better, saying the average number of candidates for the electoral areas is generally lower than in the previous elections but no electoral area had been reported to be without candidates.

CDD said women candidature had increased for the district assembly elections with preliminary national figures indicating that 1,264 candidates out of the 10,329 that had filed their papers were women, representing 12 per cent.

"This is a higher percentage than those recorded in 1998 (3.5 per cent) and 2002 (7.1 per cent).

CDD noted that physically challenged people were contesting the vote in the Volta, Upper East and Northern Regions and the Bawku Municipal Assembly had extended financial assistance to a physically challenged contestant for the Zawse Electoral Area. 18 Aug. 06