The Electoral Commission (EC) has announced its readiness to conduct the upcoming district-level elections in over 38,000 polling stations nationwide.
This includes conflict areas like Bawku in the Upper East Region and Nkwanta in the Oti Region.
Dr. Bossman Asare, the Deputy Commissioner in charge of Corporate Services, stated that the Commission has received assurances from all security services to ensure adequate protection on the day of the elections.
“We are not experts when it comes to security. We work with the Ghana police service under the Election Security Task Force. And as we speak now, we haven’t received information to the effect that we cannot have elections in the Oti area. No information like that has come out and come Tuesday, all the 38,315 polling stations are going to have the elections… including conflict areas.”
Speaking to JoyNews, he insisted that his outfit will only change their decision when they get a contrary report.
“We’ve never had any information to the contrary. If we hear the information that let’s say Bawku, if we hear anything or we receive any credible information to that effect, we are going to advise ourselves,” he added.
Meanwhile, the EC has set an ambitious target of 60% voter turnout in various districts which is even higher than the expectations of the Local Government Ministry which is targeting 50%.
According to Dr Bossman Asare, “Based on the feedback we are getting from the commercials we are running for the electoral areas, the information coming to us is that the enthusiasm level is very high, people are participating in the numbers.”
“So we are also looking at something between 50 to 60%. And as a commission we we think that many Ghanaians are interested in the process and the measures we’ve also put in place should be able to ensure that people come out in the numbers” he explained.
Background
Section six of the Local Governance Act 2016 (Act 936), as amended by Act 940, provides that the DLEs are held every four years and take place a year before the Presidential and Parliamentary elections.
Since 1988, Ghana has had eight successive local-level elections to engender greater citizen participation in the process.
The Electoral Commission (EC) subsequently opened nominations for the district-level elections in November this year.
Interested candidates are required to pick up nomination forms from the district offices of the Electoral Commission.
The election will take place in 6,272 electoral areas in 259 districts out of a total of 261.
There would be no elections in Nkoranza North and South in the Bono East regions because the polls were held in the two districts in April 2020 and the next one would be conducted for both districts in 2025.
Per the programme of activities released by the EC for the 2023 DLEs, the commission would receive nominations from aspirants from November 16 to 17 while the notice of poll for the elections would be posted from November 29 to December 4, 2023.
A platform for the aspirants in the elections would be mounted from December 1 to 14, 2023, to sell their messages to the electorate, with the election taking place on Tuesday, December 19, 2023.