Western Region gears up for District Assembly Elections

A total of 1,720 aspirants, including 62 women in all the 544 electoral areas  in the Western Region, have filed their nominations to contest the March 3, 2015 district level elections.

At the close of nominations on December 23, 2014, a total of 3994 candidates (with 307 being females) had submitted their forms for the unit committee elections in the region.

Mr Stephen Opoku-Mensah, the Western Regional Director of the Electoral Commission (EC), who disclosed this to the Daily Graphic in an interview in Sekondi, explained that nominations were first received at designated centres in the various electoral areas after which they were sent to the district offices of the EC for compilation and finally to the regional office for onward submission to Accra.

There was no record of people living with disability (PLWDs) having completed forms to vie for either assembly or unit committee membership, according to the EC Regional Director. 

Rejections

However, he said that some of the prospective candidates had their completed forms rejected for the reason that they failed to comply with the law to transfer their votes to their current electoral areas where they had filed their nominations. 

Again, Mr Opoku-Mensah indicated that others had their forms rejected because they submitted them after expiry of receipt of nominations on December 21, 2014, for the elections and December 23 in the case of the unit committee polls.

Election materials / training

The regional director also disclosed that election materials such as notices of poll, educational posters and flyers had all been received and were being displayed all over.

Currently, Mr Opoku-Mensah said, the commission was engaged in the training of all category of election officials who would take charge of the various polling stations on the election day while there were ongoing interactive workshops with stakeholders, including the media, women, PWLDs and civil society organisations (CSOs).

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Platforms

Beginning Wednesday, February 18, 2015, the EC official said, his outfit would mount platforms for all the candidates to talk to their respective electorate who would then ask them questions.

However, he said this time round, the law allowed that individual contestants could organise their own platforms in their respective areas.

Decorous campaign

The Regional EC Director appealed to the various candidates to organise their campaigns with decorum, devoid of insults and casting of insinuations, saying that it was a matter of presenting ideas for acceptance or otherwise by the electorate. "For the voters, we expect that they come out in their numbers to choose their representatives because it is governance on the doorstep of the people. The turnout has always been low but they should come out to vote for a choice of who will help develop their communities,”  he pleaded.