Some Ghanaians at an open forum for political parties and their candidates in the Kintampo North Constituency, have called on the candidates to conduct their campaign in a manner that promotes peace in the constituency.

This, according to them, was the surest way to help reduce tension in the area before, during and after the December polls. They also want the candidates to pledge to ensuring access and quick disbursement of the Disability Fund and the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) from the assemblies to improve the quality of their lives.

On HIV/AIDS, they demanded concrete measures to be put in place to help attain the country’s HIV/AIDS target of reducing new infections and increasing access to anti-retroviral drugs by 90 per cent. The programme attracted parliamentary candidates of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the People’s National Convention (PNC), Civil Society organizations, traditional authorities, officials from the security agencies, students and the constituents.

The forum was on the theme, ” Election 2016: Promoting Issue Based Debate and Post-Election Accountability at the Constituency level,” and was jointly organised National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) and its partner organizations.

The parliamentary candidates, Kwasi Etu-Bonde of the NDC, George Mensah of the CPP and Nkangwah Mateerl Charles of the NPP, were present at the event. Two independent parliamentary candidates in the constituency failed to turn up for the programme.

The aspirants pledged their commitment to ensuring a peaceful electioneering campaign and expressed readiness to accept the outcome of the elections. An officer at CODEO, Nana Hagan, said it was the desire of CODEO and its partners to deepen the country’s democracy, hence the initiative to create a platform that will make the 2016 campaign based on pertinent issues. He called on the candidates to carry out their campaigns devoid of insults and intimidation of political opponents.

citifmonline.com