Three top issues; education, health and employment, will determine the outcome of this year’s elections, a new research report by the National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE) has revealed.
It found that while these matters have remained topmost concern to Ghanaians, influencing voting pattern in the last two general election measures outlined by candidates to address prevailing bottlenecks in these sectors was likely to be the deciding factor on which party forms the next government.
Launched in Accra yesterday, the “Matters of Concern to the Ghanaian Voter” report, is the result of data collected in August this year, capturing 9,324 respondents across all 16 regions of the country.
Dr Henrietta Asante-Sarpong, the Director of Research, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Commission, stressed that addressing challenges associated with the free Senior High School policy, expanding educational infrastructure and resourcing educational institution to aid teaching and learning formed some specific demands by citizens for redress by the next government in the education sector. She said, however, creating employment opportunities by building more factories, rolling out more youth employment programmes and supporting businesses to thrive were highly anticipated from the next government.
In the area of health, Dr Asante-Sarpong indicated that 47 per cent of respondents expected an expansion in health infrastructure, followed by an improvement of the national health insurance scheme (NHIS) to have wider coverage and the equipping of health centres with modern equipment for better health outcomes.
According to her, the research pointed out that of all 19 key issues of concern to voters, matters bordering on environment and climate change, information, communication and technology, housing and rule of law were the least priority to Ghanaians.
Dr Asante-Sarpong indicated that Ghanaians were gradually shifting away from party affiliate entrenched stance to vote in elections to more issues-based focus as the report established that of factors influencing choice of presidential candidates in the upcoming elections, policies, track record and experiences were topmost instead of money inducement, religion, ethnicity or recommendation of friends.
“The combined effect of findings on voter turnout, determinants of voter choices and the key issues of concern presented suggest that the Ghanaian voter has hope and aspirations in the democratic process.
This calls for effective implementation and enforcement of manifesto promises on the top five sectors identified, including roads, infrastructure and economy,” Dr Asante-Sarpong added.
The Chairperson of the NCCE, Kathleen Addy, noted that for Ghana’s democracy to be sustained, it behooved all and sundry to play their respective roles.
“We have managed to execute several elections creditably so far but as soon as we elect people, we go and sleep but we must do more than that. We must sustain an accountability, holding leaders accountable throughout the process of governance.”
Ms Addy observed that while keen attention was paid to national politics, that could not be said for local government which was responsible for grassroots development and which also had direct impact on citizenry, charging citizens, therefore, to “try and get our local authorities to work for us and to deliver on their mandate.”
“Our share of the national cake is at the local assemblies so in trying to be active citizens, let’s try and use all the avenues available to ensure that we are part of the solution to the problems that we face in our communities,” she charged.
BY ABIGAIL ANNOH