The National Association of Local Authorities of Ghana (NALAG), has waded into calls for the election of Assembly members to be done on partisan lines.
This move, according to NALAG will help increase voter turnout at the local level.
NALAG President, Eric Nana Agyemang-Prempeh, said this in an interview on Asempa FM Ekosii Sen programme Friday ahead of the District Assembly election on Tuesday, December 19, 2023.
“People have lost interests because they feel there is no development taking place in the communities but the Assembly members are the parliamentarians and once we elect them, they will be accountable to the people,” he admonished.
Mr Agyemang-Prempeh lamented that, turnout for District Assembly elections since 1992 has never gone beyond 40%.
“It appears Ghanaians are more interested in partisan politics because there is never a low turnout for political or general election but we always witness that at the local level.
It is at the local level that drives development and if we had an effective system, or the president and ministers would have done will be monitoring so NALAG supports partisan election,” he stated.
The NALAG President refuted claims that, politicising the elections will reduce its credibility, arguing that they are already political, but not on paper.
“We can’t deny that it is not even partisan at the moment because every aspirant is aligned with a political party except that it has not been officially declared partisan,” he added.
More than 66,000 people are vying for Assembly and Unit Committee positions in 6,215 electoral areas across the 216 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).
Statistics sourced from the Electoral Commission (EC) indicate that the contestants are made up of 18,755 assembly member candidates and 47,502-unit committee member candidates, bringing the number to 66,257 candidates.
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