An overwhelming number of Ghanaians who took part in a 3-day poll hosted by GhanaWeb have voted to say a legislator who fired gunshots at a voters registration centre should be sacked.
MP for Awutu Senya East in the Central Region, Mavis Hawa Koomson, on Monday, July 20, 2020, admitted to firing the shots at the Step to Christ polling station in Kasoa to protect herself.
Ms Koomson, who is also the Minister of Special Development Initiatives said she fired "warning shots" because "there were no police around" and a group of menacing young men were attempting to attack her.
The shots disrupted the registration process at the polling centre as registrants and election officials run helter-skelter.
But despite explaining that she fired the shots in self-defence, a section of the public have called for her to be removed from both the Executive and legislative office.
Her party the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) have stuck behind her, parrying away the calls for her dismissal.
In the poll launched by GhanaWeb to seek the views of readers, respondents had the option to vote to answer “Yes”, “No” or “Indifferent” to the question “Should Hawa Koomson be fired for firing gunshots at Voters registration centre?”
A total of 3,855 responses were obtained in the poll that ended last week.
A whopping 2,807 votes out of the total 3,855 respondents voted “Yes”, representing 72.81% of total respondents, while 913 respondents (23.68%) voted “No”.
Some 135 respondents voted “Indifferent” representing only 3.5% of the total votes.
Background to GhanaWeb polls
GhanaWeb launched its polls in May with the first question being: should the EC go ahead with the new register?
This poll question gained 141,132 responses in 48 hours and over 2,000 people commented under the poll expressing divergent views about the Electoral Commission and the new voters’ register.
The GhanaWeb Poll is an open-access poll that allows participants to self-select into participation. The results of the poll cannot be generalized but are only representative of the participants of the poll.
The poll seeks to enable GhanaWeb readers to predict the opinions of Ghanaians on issues and decisions that affect the country.
Results from this poll is only representative of participants and therefore cannot be generalised.