My Ghana Electronic Desk

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Contrary to fears that the contribution of Ghanaian journalists to the country’s elections this year would be close to negligible because they were not privileged to do early or special voting as has been the case in previous elections, the media has been very visible in every nook and cranny of the country. This, it is believed, is as a result of a special dispensation accorded all media persons accredited by the Electoral Commission to cover the elections. In the absence of the special voting, presiding officers at all of the country’s 26,000 polling stations were instructed to permit any media person at their stations to enjoy preferential voting, so they would be able to adequately cover the elections after casting their ballot. The plan ‘B’ seems to have made an otherwise disturbing situation better, although some reports indicate that media persons who were deployed to other parts of the country by their establishments had to sacrifice their votes...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE An electoral officer explaining things to anxious voters Nature herself smiled on Ghana’s 6 th consecutive democratic polls currently ongoing across the length and breadth of the country, with two bouts of moderate to heavy rain along the coastal belt, especially in Accra the capital. Residents of Accra received a heavenly package of cool showers in the early afternoon and around 7pm on the eve of the country’s 2012 elections. And as if the creator Himself knows that most polling stations are in the open where people will have to queue for long hours to exercise their franchise on the D-day, the rain the previous night has brought a coolness to the entire electoral process as seen from the capital. To show their determination to cast their ballots for their preferred Parliamentary and Presidential candidates, Ghanaians began forming long winding queues with chairs, benches, stones and with some even spending the night at their polling sta...