AFARI GYAN CHALLENGES WOMEN TO BE MORE COMPETITIVE (PAGE 12, OCT 30, 2010)

THE Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Dr Kwadwo Afari Gyan, has challenged women interested in participating in the forth coming District Level Elections to formulate an effective strategy that would make them competitive to be elected into the assemblies.
He pointed out that with the reduction of the number of unit committees from 125,000 to 30,000, “ competition is likely to be very keen and this may discourage many women from participating in the district level elections.”
Addressing media practitioners in Kumasi on the changes to the legal framework for the district level elections, and its consequences, Dr Gyan said the Legislative Instrument 1589 that established the Local Government and Unit Committees in 1994 had been replaced with the LI 1967 2010.
He spoke on the theme “ improving citizen participation in the 2010 District Level Elections through enhanced knowledge”
Dr Gyan pointed out that under the new law, the membership of unit committees “ had reduced membership from 15 to five”.
He noted that under ACT 1589, 225,000 members were elected into the district assembly nationwide, but with ACT 1967, 2010, an estimated 30,000 would be elected, making the competition for election into the district very keen.
He said with the changes in the legal framework, ACT 473 of the District Assembly Elections 1994, which restricted platforms mounting strictly to the Electoral Commission, had also been amended.
Explaining, Dr Gyan said, a new ACT-801 2010 liberalised platform mounting in two major ways.
Explaining, he said the new act now allowed individual candidates to mount their own platforms to market themselves to the electorate without any recourse to the Electoral Commission.
He expressed concern about the decentralisation system, saying the over politicisation of the district level elections were undermining meaningful socio-economic development at the grass root level.
“ District committees can function very well at the grassroot level if it is devoid of partisan politics,” he noted.
He, therefore, charged opinion leaders in various communities to resist any attempt by politicians to infiltrate their ranks and impose candidates on them at the district level elections.