Voting in nine electoral areas in Upper West Region rescheduled

Wa, Dec. 28, GNA - Voting in nine electoral areas in the Upper West Region has been rescheduled due to the inability of the Electoral Commissio= n to supply them with the required voting materials, Ghana News Agency (GNA) investigations revealed at Wa on Tuesday.

The affected Electoral Areas are: Nayiri and Guli Electoral Areas in the Wa Municipality; Tiiwi, Jusua and Jawia Electoral Areas in the Sissala West District; Banu; Nyaminjang and Stadium Residential Electoral Areas in the Sissala East District and Kojokperi Electoral Area in the Nadowli District. These areas are not voting today because they were not supplied with their ballot papers. Meanwhile, most of the polling stations the GNA visited in the Wa Municipality recorded an encouraging voter turn-out as voters were in long queues to cast their ballots.

At the Dobile Electoral Area in the Wa Municipality voting was going o= n smoothly with people cueing to cast their votes when the GNA went there. At the Wa Catholic Primary polling station in the Dobile Electoral Area, out of a total of 1,630 registered voters, about 230 people had already cast their votes as at 11.00 hours.

At the Catholic JHS Polling Station, which has a voter population of 1,353, only 173 people had voted at 11.05 hours, while at the TB Low Cost Polling Station 105 voters out of the 966 total voters had cast their ballo= t as at 11.15 hours. At the Pastoral Centre Polling Station, 183 voters out of the 1,006 registered voters had cast their vote as at 12 noon. Madame Pauline Azayele= , Presiding Officer at the station, described the election as peaceful but wa= s worried about the slow pace of the voter turn out.

In some of the polling stations no security men were present but everything was going on smoothly as at the time of the GNA visit. Madame Dora Baniyeni, Presiding Officer of at the Catholic Primary Polling Station told the GNA that voting had been progressing smoothly. At the Environmental 93A" Polling Station in the Kabanye Electoral Area, 150 voters out of a total voting population of 891 had voted at the time th= e an expected total of 868 ballots. A number of people, who went about their duties as if nothing was happening, said they were not going to vote because they did not know the candidates.

"This is a small election so I will not waste my time by going to vote. I have never voted in any district assembly election. Moreover I don= 't know the candidates", said Iddrisu Issahaku, a hawker of second-hand clothing.

Others said they would only go and vote when they were able to identif= y candidates, who were members of their political parties although they were aware that the exercise was non-partisan.