Too early to conclude turnout for elections was low - EC
The Electoral Commission (EC) has stated that it is too early to conclude that patronage of Tuesday’s district level elections (DLEs) was low, as reported in sections of the media.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic Wednesday, the Deputy Chairman of the EC in charge of Operations, Alhaji Sulley Amadu, conceded, however, that the turnout for the elections was low in the mornings when majority of journalists visited the polling stations.
He said many people turned out to vote later in the afternoon, particularly in the regions, with the exception of Greater Accra.
He said the EC was compiling the figures for the voter turnout and indicated that total voting figures would be ready by Friday, September 4, 2015 to set the records straight.
“I believe in facts and figures,” he said.
The DLEs were conducted to elect assembly members for the various metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) across the country.
They were also used to elect members of the unit committees in those electoral areas.
Trends in DLEs
Alhaji Sulley, who spoke on phone from Tamale in the Northern Region where he had supervised the elections, said turnout trends for DLEs had always been low, with the highest turnout of 41.6 per cent recorded in 1998.
The figure reduced to 33 per cent in the 2002 DLEs, picked up to 39 per cent in 2006 and dropped to 35.27 per cent in 2010.
Awareness creation
Alhaji Sulley denied a suggestion that the EC had not carried out an effective educational campaign to create awareness of the DLEs.
He said the EC ran jingles on the elections on radio, beginning from the middle of August this year.
The deputy chairman said the commission had spent much of its budget on an educational campaign in the earlier scheduled election which was suspended following a court ruling.
Therefore, he said, the EC ran the campaign in a way not to swell up its budget.
Generally, he said, the commission was satisfied with the system put in place for the elections,
Challenges
Alhaji Sulley mentioned the late start of voting, the non-appearance of names of some unit committee candidates on the ballot papers and the swapping of pictures of aspirants as some of the major challenges that confronted the elections.
For instance, he said, voting in Kenyasi West in the Kwabre East District in the Ashanti Region could not take place because the names of unit committee candidates did not appear in the ballot papers.
He said voting could also not take place in West Mamprusi in the Northern Region because of the swapping of pictures of the aspirants.
Again, he said the inability of a presiding member to turn up in the Ayawaso Electoral Area in the Greater Accra Region made it impossible for the elections to be conducted in that area.
The election in those areas has been rescheduled.
