Regional News of Tuesday, 13 March 2012

Source: GNA

NGO organizes peaceful election seminar for political parties

Mr Isaac Abrokwa, Principal Technical Director of Pan African Organization for Sustainable Development (POSDEV), has cautioned against macho men hijacking or snatching ballot boxes during the December elections.

Mr Abrokwa said this at a day’s seminar for political party members, priests, Imams, hair dressers and heads of departments at Agona Nsaba towards incident free elections in the Central Region.

The seminar was organized by POSEDEV, a non-Government Organization (NGO) and sponsored by Star-Ghana, an Organization aimed at strengthening transparency, accountability and Responsiveness in Ghana.

It was attended by representatives from the New Patriotic Party (NPP), National Democratic Congress (NDC), Progressive Peoples Party (PPP) and Convention People’s Party (CPP).

It brought together Municipal and District Assemblies, Inter-Party Advisory committees, traditional and religious leaders, media practitioners and independent governance institutions to formulate plans to enhance peace before, during and after the December elections.

He appealed to the participants to intensify voter education, interaction with constituency executives of the political parties, radio panel discussions on political tolerance and pre election pace walk to signify that political opponent is not an enemy.

Mr Abrokwa expressed concern about destruction of posters and other campaign paraphernalia and said it posed danger to peaceful elections.

He appealed to political parties to educate their members on the voting processes, electoral laws, dialogue and healthy political debates.

He said the political parties should use messages based on issues and not on personal attacks or insults that could mar the beauty of democracy.