Only 7.95 per cent women contest in District Assembly Election

Accra, Dec. 27, GNA - Only 1,376 representing 7.95 per cent of the 17,315 candidates contesting the 2010 District Assembly Election are female= s as against 15,939 representing 92.05 males.

The 2010 District and Unit Committee Elections is slated for Tuesday December 28. The polls start from 0700 hours to 1700 hours at more than 21,000 polling stations across the country.

On the Unit Committee Election, only 4,652 representing 10.17 per cent of the total 45,762 candidates contesting are females as against 41,110 males representing 89.83 per cent.

This was contained in Electoral Commission's (EC) nomination statist= ics made available to the Ghana News Agency on Monday.

The statistics for the District Assembly Election indicates that out o= f a total of 1,555 contestants in the Western Region, only 86 female are taking part against 1469 males. In the Central Region; 1,664 contestants are taking part with 120 females, Greater Accra; 1,269 candidates, with 133 females. In the Volta Region, out of the total of 1,833 contestants only 187 ar= e female against 1,646 males. In the Eastern Region the record indicated that out of 2,308 contestants; 198 are females against 2,110 males and in the Ashanti Region only 240 females are contesting out of the 3,393 nominations.

In the Brong Ahafo Region the data indicates that 1,979 are contesting with 149 being women and 1,830 being men while data from the Northern Regio= n shows that 1,749 are contesting with 145 being women and 1,604 men. Upper East Region recorded 896 candidates with 70 women and 826 men an= d in the Upper West Region, only 669 candidates with 48 women are contesting. In accordance with the electoral rules, the EC has appointed Returning Officers, Deputy Returning Officers, Presiding Officers and Polling Assistants to perform various roles in the conduct of the elections.

On the procedure for declaration of results, EC guidelines made available to the Ghana News Agency indicates that before the election results of the Unit Level Election are announced at the Electoral Area Centre, the Deputy Returning Officer will sum up the total number of votes cast for each candidate in all the polling stations in the Unit. The five candidates with the highest number of votes are declared the elected members of the Unit Committee and a copy of the declaration of results form is to be posted at a conspicuous place at the Unit Centre. The procedure for the District Assembly Election, the Deputy Returning Officer will sum up the total number of votes cast for each candidate at al= l the polling stations throughout the Electoral Area. "At the end of the collation, the candidate with the highest number of votes is declared the winner for the Electoral Area. A copy of the declaration of results form is to be posted in a conspicuous place at the Electoral Area Centre," the EC noted.