The NCCE has however indicated that the Presidential Candidate for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) , Nana Akufo-Addo, will not be participating.

This means, presidential candidates of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), People’s National Convention (PNC), Convention People’s Party (CPP), National Democratic Party (NDP), National Democratic Congress (NDC) including independent candidate, Joseph Osei Yeboah are the only ones who will be on today’s platform.

The NCCE indicated the objective of the exercise is to afford the candidates the opportunity to espouse their policies and programmes to Ghanaians to enable them make informed decisions on December 7

President John Mahama and the remaining five candidates would be at the event, but many were expecting to see Akufo-Addo and Mahama on the same platform.

The expectation was heightened after President Mahama earlier expressed his desire to have a one on one debate with Nana Addo to discuss issues surrounding his term of office.

“How can I run from a debate? I want a productive debate, one on one with Nana Akufo-Addo. What they are talking about is the IEA. I want a debate on all the contentious issues he has raised. And I will respond and Ghanaians will be the judge,” he said.

The NCCE  has however explained that several discussions to convince the NPP to participate have not yielded results.

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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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The post NPP snubs NCCE presidential debate appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

This, according to them, was the surest way to help reduce tension in the area before, during and after the December polls.

[contextly_sidebar id=”ipM1DClklmqTwuZ0DI0GuowDcQrAIeQ2″]They also want the candidates to pledge to ensuring access and quick disbursement of the Disability Fund and the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) from the assemblies to improve the quality of their lives.

On HIV/AIDS, they demanded concrete measures to be put in place to help attain the country’s HIV/AIDS target of reducing new infections and increasing access to anti-retroviral drugs by 90 per cent.

The programme attracted parliamentary candidates of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the People’s National Convention (PNC), Civil Society organizations, traditional authorities, officials from the security agencies, students and the constituents.

The forum was on the theme, ” Election 2016: Promoting Issue Based Debate and Post-Election Accountability at the Constituency level,” and was jointly organised National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) and its partner organizations.

The parliamentary candidates, Kwasi Etu-Bonde of the NDC, George Mensah of the CPP and Nkangwah Mateerl Charles of the NPP, were present at the event. Two independent parliamentary candidates in the constituency failed to turn up for the programme.

The aspirants pledged their commitment to ensuring a peaceful electioneering campaign and expressed readiness to accept the outcome of the elections.

An officer at CODEO, Nana Hagan, said it was the desire of CODEO and its partners to deepen the country’s democracy, hence the initiative to create a platform that will make the 2016 campaign based on pertinent issues.

He called on the candidates to carry out their campaigns devoid of insults and intimidation of political opponents.

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By: Mashoud Kombat/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Electorates task parliamentary candidates to promote peace appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.