Intense civil and voter education can ensure people-oriented democratic election in Africa
NEC boss
The National Elections Commission (NEC) says that robust and sustained advocacy and intense Civil and Voter education and media advocacy will ensure Maximizing Continuous Voter Registration, leading to a People Oriented Democratic Election in Africa.
The NEC-Liberia Chairperson, Madam Davidetta Browne Lansanah speaking on the topic, maximizing continuous Voter Registration and Civic Education exercise for a People Oriented Democratic Election, a call to all Nigerians, said records show that Continuous Voter Registration throughout the 5 regions of Liberia, through a partnership with the United Nations Development Program, UNDP, and NEC-Liberia providing funding to support Civil Society Organizations, particularly Women’s CSO’s, helped to raise awareness in communities, as well as continuous engagement in the registration process also encouraged supporters to register and vote.
The NEC-Liberia Boss said, in addition to maximizing continuous voter registration, the Commission has developed gender policy aiming for inclusivity of women, deployment, and training of gender monitors to conduct field advocacy and reporting, the conduct of Liberian-regional stakeholder’ engagement on the Voter Registration, (VR), process and awareness-raising of local leaders and village “Town Cries” to deliver VR messages worked well; training of media practitioners lead to a near accurate reporting on the VR process; we have held constant field monitoring and evaluation to assess turnout, and where it was low NEC-Liberia worked to re-strategize methodology which helped to guide registrants and undecided groups toward registration centers.
The NEC-Liberia Chairperson spoke Thursday in Uyo, Akwa-IBOM State, in Nigeria at the organized Pan African Women Projects of South Africa, South-South Sensitization Workshop for Nigerian Women Voters, in collaboration with the Independent National Electoral Commission of Nigeria, INEC. Madam Browne Lansanah informed the Nigerian women, voters, that Maximizing Continuous Voter Registration can be achieved through the use of various media and their outlets including, social media, and extensive and sustained public information outreach is critical to ensuring greater participation of the citizenry in the VR process, as well as outline portal which INEC Nigeria launched recently.
The NEC-Liberia Chairperson said, to achieve People Oriented Democratic Elections, the training, fundraising and campaigning of more women candidates for elections cannot be over-emphasized, and challenges women advocacy groups to work together to form stronger coalitions that will give them tenable positions and stronger negotiating leverage in politics. Madam Davidetta Browne Lansanah, use the opportunity at the Nigerian women voters workshop to call on all eligible Nigerians to come out to register, proposing the slogan, “each one, tell one” registration is the key to voting to exercise your franchise during the coming elections in Nigeria.
She said as part of the internal process of ethical fairness and transparency employment at Electoral Commission needs to be based on gender equity, and all election-related programs should employ a gender perspective and take issues as a central part of the process and calls on Executive Leadership in countries to be committed to gender equity and to reflect that at the level of Cabinet Appointments. she said giving the Liberian experience, records show an increase in the number of registrant’s low of several hundred thousand to a high of 2.4 million from an established 3 million eligible Liberians who have reached the required age of 18, the NEC-Liberia Chairperson told the gathering of mainly Nigerian Women Voters.-Dispatch
