Cool weather heralds Ghana’s polls
BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE
An electoral officer explaining things to anxious voters |
Nature herself smiled on
Ghana’s 6th 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
stations under mosquito nets, so they are able to cast their ballots early when
the process began at 7am the day after.
So the day finally
arrived and many have already cast their votes at the 26,000 polling stations
in the 275 constituencies – the highest ever in Ghana after the creation of 45
more by the Electoral Commission.
So far, the process has
been generally peaceful all over the country except for very negligible pockets
of disturbances in some places.
At the polling stations
visited in the Weija – Gbawe constituency, it was noted that there was a
general delay in the start of voting as a result of the late arrival of electoral
materials. Voting started in earnest at 8am in some polling stations, while the
exercise took off at approximately 7:15am at others.
The worst delay
experienced was at the Mount Zion Nursery polling station at New Gbawe, where
Presiding Officer of split station B, Sebastian Amekah intimated that the late
arrival of materials, coupled with preparations for the exercise to commence,
resulted in the delay.
At the same Mount Zion
Nursery polling station. It was realised some of the electoral materials were
wet when they arrived. This Amekah said, may have happened as a result of the
rain the previous night. He however explained that no ballot paper was wet but
only some declaration forms.
Presiding Officer of polling
station A, Daniel Nkrumah, also divulged that as many as three electoral
officers had not reported by the time of visit at 10:47am, which also
contributed to delay in the start of voting.
At both sides of the
polling station about 150 people had cast their ballots at the time of visit,
while 584 and 585 registered voters were expected to cast their ballots at
stations A and B respectively.
In terms of security, all
polling stations visited in the constituency were covered, except at the Ansong
Senior High School (Top Base) polling station where despite starting on time
(7am) no security person was on hand.
Both presiding officers
for split stations A and B, Esther Afful and Joseph Nkrumah however said
everything had been peaceful since the start, although they had communicated
the situation to the security agencies and were expecting a security person to
be deployed to the station.
According to the
officers, 563 and 564 people respectively, were expected to vote by close of
day while about 180 had voted at both ends as at 9:58am.
Interestingly, as many as
four security personnel (from CEPS, Police, Fire Service and Immigration) were
on hand at the Mount Zion Nursery polling station.
Polling agents of only
the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) were present
at all the polling stations visited. Agents of the other parties could not be
found at all the polling stations.
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