CDD-Ghana Working To Ensure Peaceful Elections In December

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The Center for Democratic Development (CDD) Ghana says it is working in close collaboration with stakeholders to ensure that the upcoming elections were credible, transparent and peaceful.

Nana Kwabena Abrampah Mensah, the Programmes Officer-in-charge of Security Sector Governance, said although there were constitutionally mandated institutions to ensure these were achieved, CDD-Ghana was committing itself to complement the activities of the institutions in order to fill the gaps.

This was why the Center had begun a programme to educate, train and build the capacities of key stakeholders who would either observe or report on the electoral processes.

Nana Abrampah Mensah was addressing participants at the opening of a two-day media literacy workshop on electoral reporting and safety of journalists in Kumasi.

It was organized jointly by CDD-Ghana and the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA).

Selected journalists drawn from the Ashanti, Bono, Bono-East and Ahafo Regions were taken through journalism standards, best practices, handling misreporting, disinformation and fake news among others.

Nana Abrampah Mensah said CDD-Ghana was going to train some 100 people to observe the upcoming voter registration exercise.

Trainers would be checking the effective use of biometric devices, observation of the COVID-19 protocols and other related issues.

CDD-Ghana was also partnering with the National Peace Council to select 16 conflict-prone constituencies to do thorough education using the new Act 999 (vigilante and related offences Act) and the code of conduct for disbanding vigilante groups.

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The aim is to popularize these documents and the Act and let the people in the constituencies know the difference between the criminal code, punitive measures and what was provided in the Act, he noted.

Again 1,000 people will be deployed for three months to track political campaigns across all the 275 constituencies in the country.

He said on the Election Day (December 07), a total of 7,000 election observers will be deployed to selected polling stations with Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT), to verify and ensure accuracy of the Electoral Commission’s declared results.

After the general polls, 1,000 more people will be tasked to monitor events of post-election contestations for about four weeks.

Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Godwin Ahianyo, Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Ashanti Regional Police Command, said the police were on course to ensure that the right things were done before, during and after the 2020 general polls.

He urged journalists to be accurate and professional in reporting, especially, issues relating to elections for peace to reign in the country.

By:GNA