{"id":100222,"date":"2015-03-17T18:25:24","date_gmt":"2015-03-17T18:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=100222"},"modified":"2015-03-17T18:25:24","modified_gmt":"2015-03-17T18:25:24","slug":"national-elections-should-be-held-same-day-in-ghana-northern-csos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=100222","title":{"rendered":"National elections should be held same day in Ghana – Northern CSOs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) platform on Good Governance in the Northern Region is asking Parliament to enact a law which will ensure that Presidential, Parliamentary and District Assembly elections are held simultaneously.<\/p>\n

This in the estimation of the platform could prevent the cancellation of local elections as manifested in the 2015 District Assembly elections which was scheduled for March 3.<\/p>\n

The platform is also demanding the immediate dismissal of top officials of the Electoral Commission whose \u201cgross negligence\u201d necessitated the nullification of the District Assembly elections.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2556[1]\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Coordinator of the CSOs platform on Good Governance in the Northern Region, Alhassan Mohammed Awal raised these concerns captured on a petition submitted to the Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Mohammed Muniru Limuna for onward submission to President John Dramani Mahama over the cancellation of the 2015 District Assembly elections.<\/p>\n

Members of the platform and other well meaning residents of Tamale went on a peaceful street procession in Tamale over the matter.<\/p>\n

They held placards with inscriptions such as, \u201cEC compensate aspirants, why did we wait for this to happen? Development is our concern, let us manage our resources, our taxes, our time, our energy and no politics in this we should be concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alhassan Mohammed Awal impressed upon Parliament and the Electoral Commission to find permanent solution to some constitutional lapses inhibiting the organization of elections in the country.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2550[1]\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cParliament and the Electoral Commission must as a matter of urgency act swiftly to have an LI within the shortest possible time to ensure that the district level elections are organized within the shortest possible time to avoid throwing the nation into a constitutional crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cParliament and Electoral Commission must work together to restore the confidence of Ghanaians in their mandate as state institutions by ensuring that the recommendation to have a fixed date for the district level elections is adhered to,\u201d he underscored.<\/p>\n

Alhassan Mohammed Awal charged government, \u201cThe government must as a matter of urgency provide the needed resources to the Electoral Commission to organize the elections once a date is fixed and do same for the National Commission on Civic Education to carryout voter education to deal with voter apathy and restore voter interest in the district level elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2563[1]\"<\/a><\/p>\n

He recalled a 20-member Parliamentary fact finding Ad hoc committee which was set up to investigate difficulties which characterized the 2010 district assembly and unit committee elections to prevent such future occurrences and suggested that the committee\u2019s recommendations be fully implemented.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn line with challenges suffered during the 2010 elections, Parliament set up a twenty member fact finding Ad hoc committee to investigate issues surrounding the apparent difficulties of the Electoral Commission (EC) in conducting the original 28th December 2010 district assembly and unit committee elections and to make recommendations to Parliament to forestall recurrence in future elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alhassan Mohammed Awal called for reactivation of the committee and emphasized the need to actualize its earlier recommendations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Committee among other observations revealed that the period between the time of releasing L.I 1983 and the filling of nomination was too short and could not allow for effective interaction with the public especially the prospective candidates of the respective newly created electoral areas\/unit committees: again the postponement of lection date and the conduct of election on different dates at different polling stations affected the quantum of funds and other resources allocated for public education.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic education information had to be changed to suit different communities as when voting was taking place: most district electoral officers found it difficult to communicate the dates of the election to electorates in areas which could not vote: there were instances where the election date had been postponed but the district electoral officers themselves did not know the new dates,\u201d he bemoaned.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2561[1]\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The regional Minister, Alhaji Mohammed Muniru Limuna commended the CSOs platform for exhibiting their civic responsibility at that level.<\/p>\n

He however tasked them to liaise with state institutions and duty bearers to avoid lapses which could culminate into constitutional crisis.
\nAlhaji Limuna promised to forward the petition to the President for redress.<\/p>\n

He called for deeper collaboration between COS working in the Northern Region and the Regional Coordinating Council to move the region forward.<\/p>\n

By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) platform on Good Governance in the Northern Region is asking Parliament to enact a law which will ensure that Presidential, Parliamentary and District Assembly elections are held simultaneously. This in the estimation of the platform could prevent the cancellation of local elections as manifested in the 2015 District Assembly elections […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":100230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,17],"class_list":["post-100222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-palaver-newspaper","tag-wassa-akropong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=100222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=100222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=100222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=100222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}