The results of a research conducted by the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) indicate that 50% of Ghanaians are willing to vote a woman as president in the 2012 general election.
Out of 7,497 respondents, 3,752 were willing to vote for a woman as president. Another group of 3,666 respondents, representing 48.9%, said they would not and 79, representing 1.1 %did not have any answer.
The NCCE gave the statistics during the launch of their post-election survey report titled "Election 2012-Matters of concern to the Electorate"
A regional analysis of the respondents who were willing to vote for a woman as president had Northern Region having the highest proportion of 72.2%, followed by the Upper West and Upper East having 68.5% and 58.6% respectively.
Eastern region followed with 49.4%, the Volta Region 46.25%, and Brong Ahafo 46.20%while Greater Accra, Western and Central regions had 46%, 45.3% and 45% respectively.
Ashanti region had the least of 41.8% of respondents willing to vote for a woman candidate and the highest proportion of 57.5% of the respondents unwilling to vote a woman as president in the upcoming elections.
A critical examination of the respondents willingness to vote for a woman as a Member of Parliament of their constituency showed that of the 3,665 male respondents, 2,342,representing 63.9% of them, responded in the affirmative and 1,282,epresenting 35%.responded no while out of the 3,782 female respondent ,2,859,representing 75.6%,voted yes, with 889,being 23.5%,saying no.
For the regional analysis, the entire region had over 60% respondents stating their willingness to vote a woman as MP. The Upper East Region had the highest proportion of 83.6% followed by Northern Region with 81.3% and Upper West with 73.3%.
For the educational background of the respondents, it is worth mentioning that 911, representing 70.6% respondents with no formal education said they would vote for a woman as MP and 178, being 67.9%, who could read and write in English and or vernacular, stated their willingness to vote for a woman as MP.
People with secondary and tertiary levels of education had 70.2% and 74% respectively saying they would vote for a woman to be an MP.
A cross-study of the religious affiliation of respondents suggest that 68.7 of Christian,75% of Muslim and 67.8%of traditionalists were willing to vote for a woman as MP.
The research further revealed that in terms of electing a woman as a Member of Parliament, 5, 233, representating 69%, said they would vote a woman as MP and 2, 186, representing 29.2%, said they would not.
Concerning other matters of women and children ,out of 1,362 respondents 483(35.5%)recommended that the government should provide women with soft loans as a form of economic empowerment, 330,presenting 24.2%,said women and children issues should be given prior attention by the government.
Also 171 of the respondents said women and children should be educated on their rights and privileges and 153 said more employment opportunities should be created for women.
A total of 170 of the respondents also said women should be given free education while 55 of the respondents (making four per cent) said women should be given free healthcare.
In a review of the report, Mr Kwesi Jonah of the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) urged all politicians to patronize the report since it contained the preference of the electorate. He stressed that without knowing their preferences, it would be difficult to convince them to vote for any political party.
He concluded that Ghanaians were willing to vote for a woman as president, but the major hindrance was that the same Ghanaians were willing to vote along political lines. He, therefore, advised political, parties to elect women as flag bearer in order to make the electorate's dream of female president a reality.
The Director of Research at the NCCE ,Mrs. Gertrude Zakaria –Ali, in a presentation of the overview of the research, observed that the methodology used in conducting the research was directed by three hypothesis : provide political parties with issues that voters would like them to address; analyze matters of concern based on gender and age, identify whether there are any differences among voters ; and provide electoral candidates with critical areas that Ghanaians and their constituencies want them to address concerning the matters raised .
The research, she said, was conducted by sample survey through personal interviews with voters from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds which included sex of respondents, educational background, occupational background, marital status and religious affiliation.
According to Mrs. Zakaria-Ali, the interviewers were trained at a one-day workshop to enhance their interviewing skills and each interviewer was assigned to each of the interviews concurrently for four days.
Daily Graphic
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