By Nicholas Osei-Wusu
With this year’s District Level Elections fast approaching, campaign activities are heating up in the Ashanti region as candidates for both the District Assembly and Unit Committee elections are adopting both overt and covert approaches to win the hearts of the electorate.
And between now and December 15, the Electoral Commission is to take over the mounting of campaign platforms in the electoral areas to ensure a fair playing field for all candidates.
Our Regional Correspondent, Nicholas Osei-Wusu, reports that data gathered from the Electoral Commission indicate that, while the number of candidates for the District Assembly elections has reduced for this year’s polls, that of the Unit Committee has shot up compared with the figures recorded for the 2019 District Level Elections.
Just like in the case of the Presidential and Parliamentary polls, the law mandates that the District Assemblies be reconstituted every four years through the conduct of the District Level Elections (DLE).
The elections, however, comprise the District Assembly and Unit Committee polls for the people at the local level to elect their representative to the District, Municipal or Metropolitan Assembly.
The Ashanti region has a total of 1,081 Electoral Areas which also translate into the same number of Units. Data obtained from the Regional Directorate of the Electoral Commission show pluses and minuses in terms of the candidates.
For the District Assembly Election, a total of 3,919 persons successfully filed their nominations to contest this year’s exercise.
This number is made up of 94 point-six percent men and five point-four percent women.
The number of candidates for 2023 shows a reduction in the four thousand 197 candidates who filed for the 2019 polls.
Similarly, the number of female aspirants has seen a reduction of about 1 percent.
For the data for the Unit Committee polls, the level of interest increased as the number of candidates improved from the 2019 figure of 8,821 to this year’s number of 9,195.
Interestingly, according to the Ashanti Regional Director of the EC, Benjamin Banor-Bioh, as many as 19 candidates are contesting for the Obinimase Electoral Area in the Amansie Central district, while in another Unit within another Amansie district, as many as 24 persons are contesting to be part of the five-member Unit Committee.
“In the District Assembly election, the highest nominations is found in the Amansie Central district and the name is Obinimmase Electoral Area. And when you go to another Electoral Area in the same district, Santenease, they have 15 candidates who are contesting for the District Assembly Elections. And when you come to the Unit Committee Elections too, the highest that we have recorded is 24, and the Unit is Kumpese,” the EC Regional Director disclosed.
Mr. Banor-Bioh tried an explanation for why the level of women’s participation has decreased in this year’s elections compared with the situation four years ago.
“The nature of our District Level Elections is that our female counterparts, most of them, because of pressure from other sources, are not comfortable coming for district-level elections. When they mount platforms, questions will be posed, and some of them may not be palatable to them, so some of them may not delve into such ventures,” Mr. Banor-Bioh guessed.
When GBCNews visited the premises of the regional EC’s directorate, some District Officers of the EC had come there to undertake various activities as part of preparations for the elections on December 19.
These included the sorting and collection of the Notice of Poll for the various Electoral Areas and Units as well as the labelling of the ballot boxes according to the Polling Centres.
The Regional Director of Elections, Mr. Banor-Bioh, assured of the readiness of the EC to conduct free, fair, and credible District Level Elections.
What is left is for the people at the community level to actively participate since the outcome has a direct impact on socio-economic development.
He advised, “this is the district level elections. They are going to help with our developmental issues of our localities, and every registered voter should take part in selecting their local leadership. Most often, people say I don’t get any benefit. But please select the correct caliber of candidates, send them to the Assembly, and they can make a change.”
Meanwhile, candidates have intensified their canvassing activities not only to win more support but also to whip up interest in the exercise among the people.
Among the candidates for the District Assembly elections is GBCNews’ Ashanti Regional Correspondent, Nicholas Osei-Wusu. Nicholas is contesting in the Nintin Electoral Area in the Mampong Municipality of the Ashanti region and seeks to leverage his connections within the media industry and corporate world to resolve some of the socio-economic challenges the people of Nintin and Hwidiem are faced with.