District Assembly elections: Declare September 1 as holiday

The district level elections can receive a massive turn-out if government declares the voting day a holiday, a Dean with the Institute of Local Government Studies believes.

“This is not to say that if it is declared a holiday people will not go to work but it is to give priority and prominence to the elections”, Dr. Eric Oduro Osae said on Multi TV's AM Show Monday.

His comments come a day to Tuesday’s District Assembly polls which usually suffer from low patronage.

The Dean of Studies and Research said the earlier postponement of the elections has also affected the process and a holiday will be a deliberate attempt to hype the elections and impact on voter turnout.

Dr. Eric Osae is also worried that about 2,000 security personnel deployed to police Tuesday’s assembly elections may be disenfranchised.

“If you are deploying all these security men outside of their electoral areas how are they going to vote?” he asked.

A total of 18,885 candidates are contesting the District Assembly Elections made up of 1,102 females and 17,783 males.

There are a total of 43,585 candidates contesting the Unit Committees Elections, comprising 12,000 female candidates and 31,585 male candidates.

Story by Ghana | Joy News| Mamavi Owusu-Aboagye | [email protected]