185 Women contest assembly polls in Ashanti

A total of 185 women have put themselves up for election in 30 metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies in the Ashanti Region.

The figure is widely seen as not encouraging, compared with that of their male counterparts, which stands at 3,501.

With regard to the unit committees, 769 women have joined the race alongside 7,504 men.

Mr. Paul Boateng, the Ashanti Director of the Electoral Commission (EC), made these known to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview, in Kumasi.

He gave the assurance that adequate preparations had been done and that the Commission was ready for more successful district level polls.

He said capacity-building had been organized for the electoral officers, the media and other key stakeholders.

He expressed satisfaction with the way things were going and said except for the Maakro electoral area, where one of the candidates was caught campaigning with a political party symbol, there had not been any incident worthy of mention.

Mr Boateng did not give the name of the offending candidate, but was emphatic that he would be disqualified for breaching the electoral law.

Separately, nine candidates in the region had withdrawn their nomination for personal reasons.

The district assembly and unit committee elections would be held simultaneously on Tuesday, March 3, at all polling centres across the country between 0700 hours- 1700 hours.

Voters would only be allowed to cast their ballot after their identity had been confirmed by the biometric verification device (BVD).