Political parties involvement in assembly elections, referendum will encourage voter turn-out – NCCE

The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) is optimistic that political party involvement in the district level elections will whip up voter turn-out in the processes since the elections has often been grappling with voter apathy since its inception in 1988.

 The situation stakeholders have expressed concern about which the Commission has attributed to the non-involvement of political parties and reiterated the need for Article 55(3) of the 1992 Constitution, which barred political parties from participating in district level elections to be amended to allow for multi-partisan local government system.

According to the Commission, high voter turn-out was imperative to ensure leaders were elected by majority decision to encourage the citizenry to participate in the effective and efficient dissemination of information on the processes.

Alhaji Aliu Mohamed, the Deputy Central Regional Director of the NCCE, made this known when he was addressing students of the Cape Coast Nursing and Midwifery College on the upcoming district level elections and referendum and participate in the effective and efficient dissemination of information on the processes.

“There are implications for low voter turn-out in an election, it is important that we all take part in the electoral processes because the citizenry must be part of elections and the district level elections and referendum, slated for Tuesday, December 17, 2019, will realise the election of assembly and unit committee members.

“It coincides with the referendum where the citizenry are to vote either ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ to decide if the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives must be elected, the referendum is a constitutional requirement of 40 per cent votes from qualified voters out of which 75 per cent must vote “Yes” to make the amendment possible.

“The Electoral Commission has selected yellow and dark brown colours to denote “YES” and “NO” respectively on the ballot paper, the electorate who wish to either transfer their votes or engage in proxy voting can do so at the district offices of the EC across the country.

“I encourage students to come out in their numbers to vote for people they believe are capable to lead in the communities to make the processes peaceful and successful,” Alhaji Mohamed asserted. -GNA