Bolgatanga, Nov 18, GNA - The Upper East Regional Chairman of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), Mr. Mohammed Nurudeen Issahaq, has added his voice to the call on political parties to go about their campaigns with decorum to ensure peaceful electioneering processes. He urged the parties to especially take the education of their polling station agents seriously and that it was the moral duty of all the political parties to ensure a peaceful election. Mr. Issahaq made the call at a public forum organized by the Upper East Region office of the Electoral Commission (EC) for parliamentary candidates in the region's 13 constituencies. It was dubbed: "Safeguarding the Integrity of the Ballot" and funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and KAB Governance Consult.

Mr. Issahaq, who chaired the function, reminded the candidates that they were vying for the position to serve and help build Ghana. He urged the candidates to be guided by the ideals of nation building, adding, "Ghana will not end on December 7 but the election would."

A Director of Training at the headquarters of the EC, Mr. Charles Osei Addei who took the participants through the 'dos' and 'don'ts' of elections, especially on the polling day, said the Commission had designed a programme to train polling station agents. Mr. Addei said candidates should select polling agents who had minimum educational qualification and could easily discern between issues with a good sense of judgment. "Polling station agents should avoid drinking on the election day and should be resident in the locality to be able to challenge voters who they deem not qualified to vote." He reminded the candidates that by law, they could appoint one person to represent their interests at the polling station. They may however have one additional agent who may only relieve the agent on duty following exhaustion, distrust or any other reason known to the candidate.

Mr Adei urged the candidates to insist on copies of the statement of polls form from their agents, explaining that the form captures the results, and other issues that might have surfaced at the polling station on election day. He lauded the cordial relationship between political parties, especially the parliamentary candidates in the region, and said the Upper East Region has painted a true picture about democracy and urged them to continue with the relationship throughout the electioneering period.

The Regional Director of the EC, Alhaji Adam Iddrisu, expressed his gratitude to the parties in the region for cooperating with the EC in the region and pledged that his outfit would do its best to ensure free, fair and transparent election. 18 Nov 08