A visually impaired person is among the 64 aspirants who have filed to contest the parliamentary election in the Chiana-Paga Constituency in the Upper East Region.
Three aspirants were, however, unable to pay their filing fees as at the close of nominations. In all, 61 males and six females filed their nominations to contest the parliamentary elections in the 15 constituencies in the region.
The Regional Director of the Electoral Commission (EC) Mr James Arthur-Yeboah, made this known during a one-day capacity building workshop on media reportage for the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections in Bolgatanga on Thursday. He pointed out that “the Electoral Commission, with the mandate to disqualify any aspirant has not yet come out with the names of those who have been disqualified”.
He, however, observed that it was good that visually impaired persons were participating in the election.
“This is was good for the country’s democracy and must be encouraged,” he addded.
Media
Mr Arthur-Yeboah entreated media practitioners to focus on educating the public and the electorate on the electoral processes to enable them to make informed choices and to increase the level of participation in the election.
He equally stated that the media should raise issues constructively and not destructively in order to enhance the electoral process.
“You must also refrain from concocting stories or inflaming passions through your reportage and must see yourselves as development partners,” he stressed.
He acknowledged the important role the media played in consolidating the country’s democracy and urged media practitioners to support the EC and other stakeholders to make this year’s election successful.
A communication expert, Mr Samuel Akapule, called on the media to give equal access to all political parties to sell their ideas and policies and at the same time avoid being reduced to “mere propaganda machinery for some political parties in order not to renege on your core functions”.
“The most important responsibility of the media is to ensure that all elected representatives of the people uphold their oath of office by carrying out the wishes of the electorate,” he stated.
“My advice to the Ghanaian media is that after a war, there is no democracy,no peace,no freedom and therefore no media. It is about time media practitioners realigned themselves with global best practices,” he noted.
Observers
A Deputy Director in charge of Research, Monitoring and Evaluation of the EC, Mr Alexander Poku-Akubia, noted that both domestic and external observers complemented the efforts of the election monitoring team and the electoral management body to ensure free and fair elections.
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