Sunyani turns into a ‘ghost’ town as voters thronged polling stations to vote

Sunyani, the Brong-Ahafo Regional Capital on Friday turned into a ‘ghost’ town when eligible voters thronged the various polling stations to cast their ballot.

The usual vehicular traffic that has recently developed in the “Sun City” is absent as few taxi and private cars plied in the town.

Almost all the drinking pubs as well as stores along the principal street and the Central Business District are not operating, the day being declared a Statutory public holiday.

In many of the polling stations the Ghana News Agency (GNA) visited, voting was being conducted peacefully.

Eligible voters were seen in long queues patiently waiting for their turn to exercise their franchise.

Some of them told the GNA they woke up as early as 0400hours to join the already formed queues.

Mr Kwasi Oppong Ababio, Sunyani Municipal Chief Executive, cast his ballot at exactly 0730 hours at the Abesim Presby JHS ‘B’ in the Sunyani East Constituency, which had 635 voters.

However, voting at some of the polling stations delayed for some few minutes with at least two security personnel maintaining law and order. At most of the polling stations, only agents of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), National Democratic Congress (NDC), Progressive People’s Party (PPP) and Convention People’s Party (CPP) were present.

Presiding Officers at the polling stations told the GNA that the manner voters comported themselves was highly appreciable.

At White House Dominase ‘A’ polling station in the constituency, Mr Joseph Owusu Diawuo lauded the manner at which voters allowed the aged to cast their ballot and left whenever they visited the polling station.

He said the polling station had 606 registered voters and received voting materials as early as 0530 hours.

The situation was not different from the Roman Catholic Primary School ‘A’ at Abesim which has 753 voters, Abesim Roman Catholic Primary ‘B’ with 754 voters and Methodist Primary Abesim, polling stations with 884 registered voters.

Voting in most of the polling stations began on time with the timely arrival of the voting materials and continued peacefully and orderly.

However areas that had cluster of polling stations between two and four, such as Victoria Park in the Central Business District of Sunyani, which has four polling stations, most voters who had registered could not find their names in the register.

The problem was that some joined the long queues as early as 0400 hours only to get to the register and be informed that their names were missing and therefore, directed to join other queues in the area to vote.

Some frustrated voters decided not to exercise their franchise considering the time they considered as having been ‘wasted’.