Politics of Wednesday, 4 March 2015

Source: GNA

NGO urges EC to set a new date for district elections soon

Mr Seth Osei Acheampong, President of World Peace Volunteers, an NGO has called on the Electoral Commission to set a new date for the Districts Elections very soon to avert disinterest and minimal cost.

He said the aspirants had spent huge sum of money for campaign and it was incumbent on the Electoral Commission to fashion out proactive measures and set a new dates within the shortest possible time for the election.

Mr Acheampong in a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra expressed concern about aspirants who went for loans and would have to repay with an interest.

He said there was low interest and apathy in Unit committees and Assembly elections compared to the general elections and that the cancellation of the district elections will deepen the low interest.

He noted that the EC should have been circumspective and averts such catastrophic occurrences since it would affect the interest of electorate to participate in local government administration

“Our nationwide tour to access the preparation of the aspirants, revealed that this year’s election would be better than previous elections because candidates had committed a lot of resources in their campaigning” he added.

“For the very first time, we saw candidates contesting for assembly elections seriously and embarking on a house to house campaign printing of Tee shirt, branding mobile vans for publicity, organizing clean up exercise and football games and engaging in radio and television discourse, and visitation to hospitals and the like…,”

He shared the sentiments of the aspirants as to how they were going to reconcile such finds since the state of the election is not yet known.

Mr Acheampong called on the government to intervene and ensure that a new date was set soon since the adverts and campaigns were fresh in the minds of the people.

He called on all aspirants to reorganize and come back again for a healthy contest and encourage more women to participate in the election.