Low voter turn out at the just ended District Level Elections

Cape Coast, Jan. 20, GNA - Of the 1,121,748 registered voters expected to cast their ballots in the District Level Elections in the Central Region= , only 405,754 people representing 36.1 per cent voted. This shows a decline of 2.6 per cent compared to the 38.7 per cent voter turn out in the 2006 elections.

Mr Samuel Tettey, Regional Director of the Electoral Commission (EC), told the Ghana News Agency in an interview on Thursday that there had also been a significant reduction in women participation in the assembly and uni= t committee elections. He said 39 women as against 533 men were elected as assembly members for the 572 electoral areas in the region and described the figure for the women as 93significantly low".

Mr Tettey said in the Unit Committee elections 321 women as against 2,350 men were elected and that a total of 12 electoral areas failed to fil= e nominations while others did not get the required numbers for the Unit Committees and therefore such areas did not have the committees in place. Mr Tettey said of the 17 districts in the region, Awutu Senya and Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese recorded the highest of five women elected as assembly members each, followed by Agona West and Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa which had four women each. Mfantsiman, Ajumako-Anyan-Essiam and Assin North recorded three women each, Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem (KEEA), Efutu, Twifo-Hemang-Lower-Denkyira and Upper Denkyira East had two women each with Gomoa East and West, Agona East and Assin South having one each.

In the Cape Coast Metropolis, no woman was elected as assembly member in all of its 45 electoral areas likewise the Upper Denkyira West District. Mr Tettey said a total of 7,866 ballot papers were rejected in the region during last December's polls compared to 6,702 in 2006.