NCCE urges women to contest assembly elections
The National Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Ms Charlotte Osei, has urged women and physically challenged persons to involve themselves in the upcoming assembly elections to enable them to participate in the decision-making process at the district level.
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She observed there was low participation of women and PWDs in elections conducted in the country and that apart from parliamentary elections, assembly elections were other avenues where they could deepen participation in decision-making processes.
She was speaking to the Daily Graphic in an interview after an NCCE seminar, which was organised for 80 aspiring assembly members of the Ejisu-Juaben Municipality to engender peace and promote the participation of women and PWDs in district level elections.
National outreach
This forms part of a National Outreach programme of the NCCE being sponsored by the European Union (EU). Apart from the participation of women and PWDs, the chairperson said there was the need to whip up public enthusiasm and ensure a massive voter turnout during the assembly election.
She said it was important that the public desisted from discrimination against women and PWDs during assembly and parliamentary elections campaigns.
Strategies
She said NCCE would be collaborating with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and the Ghana Federation of the Disabled (GFD) to map out strategies to increase the participation of women and PWDs in decision making at the district level.
She asked females and PWDs aspiring for the assembly member positions not to be intimated by anybody and be quick to report acts of intimidation to the police at the nearest police station.
Political parties
She, however, urged all the aspiring assembly members to refrain from doing dirty campaigns and also desist from affiliating themselves with one political party or the other.
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The Ashanti Regional Director of the NCCE, Alhassan Yakubu, called on chiefs, opinion leaders and religious leaders to support more women and PWDs to engage in successful campaigns.
He cautioned metropolitan, municipal and district chief Executives (MMDCEs) to refrain from campaigning for aspiring assembly members in their areas.