NOGAID describes Election 2012 as success story

Northern Ghana Aid, (NOGAID), a civil society organisation on Wednesday described the general election as free, fair, transparent and peaceful, despite the challenges posed by the biometric verification machines.

"The election has also deepened multi-party democratic governance in Ghana,” Mr Mustapha Sanah, NOGAID Co-ordinator said in Tamale.

The organisation congratulated President John Dramani Mahama for his electoral victory.

This was contained in a report compiled by NOGAID to capture the activities of its flagship programme; Northern Region 2012 Multi-party Democratic Governance Support Project aimed at sanitising events leading to Election 2012.

The STAR-Ghana sponsored project with funding from UKaid, EU, USAID and DANIDA aimed at deepening multi-party democratic governance in the Northern Region.

The report said the project brought together the major actors through capacity building to ensure that the elections were based on issues devoid of insults, intimidation and use of inflammatory language.

It was also geared at ensuring free, fair, transparent and peaceful elections in a Region noted for violence and disputes. The report said statement said in the past 11 months, series of activities re carried out, which resulted in the training of 68 communication team members of the political parties, which augmented their capacity in advocacy and good communication skills.

“We provided training to editors of eight radio stations and 16 newspaper reporters to enhance their work, trained and deployed 18 political observers across flashpoints in 18 constituencies in the Region to monitor the political parties and their activities in conformity with the Political Parties Code of Conduct 2012.

“NOGAID set up a 13-Member Eminent Panel of Advisers named MCC Report Council that measured the political temperature of the Region and mediated among stakeholders to promote peace and understanding.

“The eminent panel toured nine flashpoints and dialogued with political youth leaders on the need for peace before, during and after the elections.

“The 13-Member MCC Report Council held a live appeal for peace broadcast on four leading radio stations in the Region to consolidate the peace in the area.

“NOGAID deployed 28 election observers in hotspots to monitor the elections,” the report said.

It said the organisation focused on eliminating the use of foul language during the electioneering, the use of coercion, violence and dubious means to take undue advantage of the electoral system by any political party.

“In effect, NOGAID ensured that people voted in a free, fair, transparent and a peaceful atmosphere devoid of intimidation.

“NOGAID deployed about 28 election observers who visited more than 84 polling stations in 18 constituencies and talked to about 150 party agents, 15 presiding officers, returning officers and a reasonable number of voters at all the polling centres visited,” the report said.