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Most often than not, some people argue that even in the most advanced democracies and industrialised countries such as USA and United Kingdom have a record of low rates of participation in local elections and so if turnout in local elections in Ghana is low what is the big deal about that? However, sight should not be lost on the fact that these countries’ democracies are well matured and they can also boast of well structured state institutions with a very good track record of performance. On the flip side, Ghana has a very young and fragile democracy which is just two decades old. Besides that, Ghana is situated within a continent where electoral disputes and political conflicts have been the conspicuous causes of most of the violent conflicts that had been witnessed in the African continent over the past two decades. Therefore, the voter代写留学作业提供代写Essay,代写Assignment,请联系QQ:949925041 apathy which characterises the District Assembly elections should be a matter of concern to all well meaning Ghanaians as well as all well wishers of Ghana’s democratic local governance dispensation which was supposed to be the bedrock of the overall national politics. While voter turnouts of the District Assembly elections have been markedly poor across all of the districts in Ghana, the participation rates in some of the districts are even lower. There are districts where only a few percentage of the electorate turn out, whereas in other districts most electorate participate. These differences do not seem to be purely coincidental. Figure 1 below shows the national average voter turnouts of District Assembly elections in Ghana since its inception in 1988/89 to 2006 when the last election was held in percentage terms. There were thirteen districts in the Brong Ahafo region during the 1998 and 2002 district level elections. In the two elections, only Asutifi district recorded turnout figures which were above fifty percent. Apart from the Asutifi district, none of the twelve districts in the region was able to obtain turnout figures of fifty percent or more in the two successive elections. Also, with the exception of Dormaa district which recorded 47 percent turnout value in the 2002 district level elections which was higher than the 1998 value of 44 percent, the turnout values of the rest of the districts decreased significantly in the 2002 district level elections Figure 3 above shows the voter turnout in the 2006 District Assembly elections in Brong Ahafo region. In the 2006 district level elections, the number of districts in the region increased by six (6) districts to bring the total to nineteen districts. The average turnout in the region was (45%) which was above the national average turnout of (36%). Sunyani municipal assembly which is also the regional capital of the Brong Ahafo region recorded the lowest turnout of (31%), while two districts, Asutifi and Kitampo North both recorded (58%) which was the highest turnout in the region. |