The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) says it cannot be blamed for the low voter turnout that marked the recently held district level elections.
According to the commission, it did enough sensitisation on the election and as a result, most Ghanaians were aware of the exercise.
The NCCE is, however, attributing the apathy to issues arising out of non-performing Assembly members which has reduced the interest of the people in the elections and also the decision to cancel the referendum.
The Ashanti Regional Director of NCCE, Wilson Arthur Raphael, made this statement on the sidelines of the inauguration of the Ashanti Regional inter-party dialogue committee aimed at curbing electoral violence ahead of the 2020 general elections.
“NCCE cannot be blamed because if you look at the numbers who are trying to get registered on the NIA then you will see that we worked very hard. We used every means even going from store to store to talk to the people.
It is the people themselves and those they elect who have contributed to this because at the district level; the assembly members and the unit committee members are not paid but look at the ostentatious campaigns, posters and all those things, when they go in and realise that they are not being paid then they will underperform. Then the people too will say I voted for this person at the district level but they did not perform so I won’t even go and vote again”.
The Ashanti Regional General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress, Kwame Zu said the party is committed to helping the committee in preventing electoral violence in the Ashanti Region.
“That is an ample demonstration of our commitment to peace and unity and we have demonstrated that in several ways and capacities. We fill that this platform will not be different, we will continue to promote peace, we will continue to be committed to anything that will provide that requisite ambiance for a free and transparent election. But I think the emphasis should also be made on free and transparency because once we have that, naturally it is easier for us to talk to our people to keep calm”.
The District Level Elections which was held on Tuesday, December 17, 2019, was to elect Assembly members and unit committee members for Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies across the country.
However, the exercise experienced a low turnout with voting in certain areas being rescheduled because of some logistics challenges.
