Wa, Sept. 1, GNA - Mr Ambrose Dery, Upper West Regional Minister, on Thursday expressed concern about various acts of frustrations being meted out to female candidates for the forthcoming district level elections in the Region by their male counterparts to prevent them from winning. He said available information pointed to challenges like defacing the campaign posters of female candidates and putting pressure on some of them to step down to enable male candidates to have a smooth ride through the elections, failure of which they faced the wrath of family members making such requests.

Mr Dery said this in a speech read for him at a meeting of aspiring female assembly women and constituency women's organizers in the Region at Wa organized by the Women's Department of the Ministry of Women's and Children's Affairs and the Upper West Rural Women's Association. The meeting afforded the women the opportunity to share their experiences as well as bringing out their difficulties and also to lobby the political parties' women functionaries in the Region to prevail on their supporters to vote for them. Mr Dery noted that there was a lot of work to be done to get their people to appreciate the true meaning of the concept of democracy that had been practiced since the inception of the fourth republic. He implored the National Commission on Civic Education to join the Electoral Commission to conduct intensive educational campaigns on the forthcoming elections in every corner of the Region. The Regional Minster commended women's groups and other gender advocates for whipping up the enthusiasm of women in the elections and other national issues.

Mrs Cate Bob-Milliar, Regional Director of the Department of Women, noted that campaigning in some areas in the Region had become heavily politicized and ran along partisan lines, which was not favouring female candidates in those areas. She also identified misinformation to distract the electorate from voting for women candidates and the limited financial support as obstacles to the success of the women in the elections.