The Electoral Commission (EC) has concluded a day's workshop at Yendi to consolidate peace, democracy and social stability in the Northern Region and prepare the participants towards district assembly elections in 2010.
The workshop was collaborated by the Northern Region Peace Advisory Council and sponsored by United Nations Development Programme.
It was attended by representatives of the political parties, security agencies, assembly members, women groups, religious bodies, the Information Service Department and the National Commission for Civic Education.
The participants were exposed to the mechanisms to deal with conflicts that confront the electoral process and the collective approach to ensure peace and stability during public elections.
The Municipal Electoral Officer, Mr John Mensah asked the participants to use the tools they have acquired to reach out to the people and the various political parties to help sustain peace and democracy in the region and Ghana as a whole.
Speaking on Social Conflict and Early Warning, Father Thaddeus Kuusah, a Catholic Priest with the Peace Advisory Council, expressed the need to strengthen early warning mechanisms in the communities to identify potential conflicts in order to sustain peaceful and strong democratic principles in the region.
He commended the people of Yendi for facilitating peaceful presidential and parliamentary elections in 2008.
Father Kuusah said all eyes were focused on Yendi and Tamale, the regional capital, to hear of election violence, but fortunately Northern Region had peaceful general election.
The Catholic priest suggested the need to sensitise the youth, who are most vulnerable to post election conflicts
The Deputy Regional Director of the EC, Mr Bruce Ayisi noted that election conflicts usually occur during registration exercises, exhibition of voters register, the voting process, and declaration of results and asked stakeholders to ensure that the political parties are well educated to follow electoral laws to avoid such clashes.
Mr Ayisi said such clashes occurred when an election was perceived by the public as unfair, unresponsive, corrupted and lack political legitimacy.
He said sources of political violence include poverty, unemployment and hunger among other things, which needed to be tackled critically.