The Electoral Commission of Ghana must read this.
I have a Senior High School in my Constituency!!!
Kwame Atuah Patrick writes…………..
In every general election, the Presidential election is seen as one constituency for the entire country, but that is certainly not the case of the Parliamentary elections.
In the Parliamentary elections every member of Parliament has his/ her own constituency in which residents within that geographical area vote that person to represent them. The geographical demarcation is so tight that hardly will you see people in one constituency trying to bypass their own constituencies and enter a different one to exercise their franchise.
Threat from Senior high Schools!!
A liability to this smooth process is the presence of senior high schools in most of the constituencies, these students from the schools are now the major determining factor in most of the parliamentary seats today. Especially in the constituencies with more than one Senior high school and the difference between the two main political parties are below thousand (1000).
The sad aspect of this situation is that most of the students are not residents where these schools are, that is they are not from that constituency, for example a students may move from Tamale to Dunkwa to study, this student will register at Dunkwa and now the voting day is November 7, again he will be in school and then determines who should be the member of Parliament in Dunkwa and just less that a year or two he will finish his program go back to Tamale and may not return to that constituency in his entire life again.
By this, it means that the people in that community don’t decide who should represent them in Parliament, but rather these students from other parts of the country, Very unfortunate!!!!
This is the reason behind the misunderstandings being reported at most of the registration centers that have Senior High schools nearer.
My Suggestion!!!
Going forward,
I suggests that the Electoral commission consults the Ghana Education service in coming out with their time tables for these activities, so that if it can always be done when the students are back home to avoid such circumstances.
Again, the elections day, they should allow the students to go home and vote, even if they can schedule their normal mid Terms to that effect.
