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The wealth of the districts There is sound indication that economic growth (GNP per capita) drives political change in democratic directions. An essential mediating factor is the improvement of the quality of life for a broad spectrum of the inhabitants that goes along with economic growth. These diverse indicators of socio-economic modernisation have been revealed to drive democratisation across nations. The main indices of wealth used by Baldersheim, Jamil and Aminuzzaman in their study of electoral participation in Bangladesh were percentage of households with electricity, sanitary toilets, and running water facilities since households with such facilities are said to be well to do in Bangladesh. Akin to Ghana wealth is measured by the percentage of households with the following facilities; access to electricity, access to improved and safe drinking water source, safe sanitation, improved waste disposal and access to health care. Households with such facilities in the districts may be said to better-off households and as such those districts are considered to be economically developed. Because of financial constraints, state institutions are not able to conduct extensive research on income levels in Ghana, so normal poverty levels based on estimations. According to Blais and Dorbrzynska (1998:242), there is an impact of the level of economic development on voter participation and therefore, a moderate level of economic development is essential in order to obtain a high turnout which is at the national level. Political participation calls for important resources such as information, The is provided by UK Assignment http://www.szdhsjt.comtime, skills, and etcetera, therefore those with high level of economic development are likely to vote more than those in under-developed communities. This is because there is assumption that poor people tend to think about how they can survive from the harsh economic conditions they find themselves and therefore, do not care about what happens in the wider community in the area of politics. However, Devas and Delay (2006:683) found voter turnout to be generally higher not only in local level elections but also in poor and low- income areas compared to well-off neighbourhoods. Two scenarios are given as possible explanations for this kind of results in the local level elections. First, the deplorable state of affairs of the citizens may impel them to take hold of any opportunity in achieving some improvement. The second scenario is related to “ ‘vote bargaining’, in which community leaders organize to bargain with electoral candidates in return for delivering blocks of votes. Though, such situation may bring some level of improvement in the communities it may eventually culminate in ‘vote buying’. Hypothesis 2: The higher the level of wealth of a district, the higher the voter turnout. The rural-urban status of the districts. The rural-urban classification of localities in Ghana is population based, with a population size of 5000 or more being urban and less than 5000 being rural as used in all the earlier censuses. The population of Ghana is predominantly rural: Only two regions; Ashanti region (51.3%) and Greater Accra region (87.7) have levels of urbanization above average. The Brong Ahafo region, (37.4) is the fourth most urbanized region in Ghana according to the 2000 Population and Housing census. Only four districts, Sunyani (73.8%), Techiman (55.7), Berekum (54.7) and Tano (43.2%), have levels of urbanization above the regional average, with Sunyani, Berekum and Techiman having much higher proportion of urban than rural population. There is a general feeling that rural dwellers are more likely to vote specifically in the local elections more than the urban dwellers. This is based on the communal lifestyle among the rural dwellers who consider themselves as one big family as compared to “each one for himself” attitude among urban dwellers. It is therefore easier to induce rural dwellers who lack certain basic social amenities with few infrastructural projects to go to the polls more than the urban folks who may never be satisfied with the local authorities due to their level of exposure to modern technologies and foreign cultures. |
