Provide a fixed date for District Level elections – CDD

The Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) insists the Electoral Commission should have postponed the ongoing District Assembly and Unit Committee elections until January 2011.

The Centre says the current lapses in the electoral process vindicate its position some days ago that the elections should be re-scheduled to January 2011.

CDD-Ghana had suggested to the Commission to call off the elections and organise them in January 2011, due to low publicity and delays in printing ballot papers and dispatch of materials.

The EC did not give heed to the advice and went ahead with the elections.

But even before the start of the elections on Tuesday December 28, the EC announced that it could not organise the elections in eight regions because materials for those areas were not ready.

Even as at this time, not all ten regions have started voting. Electorates have criticized the Electoral Commission and the Local Government Ministry for the hiccups.

There are fears that these uncertainties might seriously affect the turn-out for this year’s election.

A Programmes Officer for CDD-Ghana, PNK Aborampa-Mensah told Citi News the EC and other election stakeholders must quickly consider fixing a date for district assembly elections in the future just as it is done for parliamentary and presidential elections.

“We believe the EC wasn’t prepared and Afari Djan himself conceded that on the 3rd of December when he spoke to The Chronicle. That is why we thought they could have done a better job if they had postponed the elections and held it at a future date by which time everything might have been ready”.

“But we still stand by our position that we should have a fixed date for District level elections as we have in the presidential and parliamentary elections, so that it will be obligatory for the Electoral Commission and the Local Government Ministry to have a better planning towards the election together with the media and all other stakeholders” he noted.