The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), has advised the citizenry not to stay away from voting ahead of the 2020 elections partly blamed on the low turnout in the ongoing voters’ register exhibition exercise.
It cautioned that staying away from elections is not the solution to the challenges of democratic dispensation although the voters’ register exercise experienced low patronage and a number of challenges at the various registration centres.
Constituencies like New Juaben North and South in the Eastern Region faced challenges of not having needed materials supplied from the Electoral Commission, thereby hindering residents from checking their details on the first day of the exercise with similar incidents which happened at theTamale Central Constituency of the Northern Region.
However, speaking at a forum dubbed, ‘Making democracy work for the people’ which was organised by the Centre for Democratic Development-Ghana (CDD-Ghana), Ms Josephine Nkrumah, the Chairperson of NCCE, pointed out that “I use every opportunity to always encourage participation of the citizenry in democracy by exercising their voting rights, if we want vibrant democracy as citizens, we shouldn’t indicate that because we’re not getting what we want, we’re not going to vote, now more than ever, we should vote.
“This is about multi-party democracy, if you feel you are not getting what you want from either of two dominant parties, there are other options for you, there are other parties, we should begin to interrogate what those other parties also present and determine whether they are better option or not,” she stated.
Dr Lloyd Amoah, the Director of the Centre for Asian Studies at the University of Ghana, noted political parties need to focus on growth and development rather than the privileges that come with being in power saying, “When power is won, the next thing is spoils of power, who gets what within the party, our parties lose focus on issues, futuristic questions, I think there’s the need to be reconfiguration of overall mindset and philosophy in terms of our parties.”
The Electoral Commission has subsequently extended the voters’ register exhibition exercise which commenced from September 10, 2019 and was expected to end on September 17, 2019 but a statement by the Commission said the exercise will now end on September 20, 2019. -citinewsroom.com