Election Regions 14 Mpraeso

Voting is going on peacefully in almost all the polling centres in the Kwahu-West Municipality, Kwahu South and Kwahu East districts. Less than half of registered voters had cast their votes at the 22 polling centres visited in the Nkawkaw, Mpraeso and Abetifi constituencies as at 1200 hours and there were no long queens at the polling centres as compared to the December 7 election. Agents of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Party (NDC) and security personnel were at the polling centres to monitor the elections.

The Chief of Obo and Nifahene of Kwahu Traditional area, Nana Yeboah Afari Buagyan II, was among the first people to cast their votes at the Obo Post Office polling centre where 161 people had cast their votes out of 635 registered voters as at 0940 hours. He advised all registered voters in the area to go and cast their votes and be prepared to accept the result of the election and support which ever candidate who will win the election to ensure peace and stability in the country. Some of the electorates attributed the absence of long queues to the less number of candidates contesting the election as against the December 07 election.

Voting in Ashaiman constituency took-off smoothly at most polling stations with a few recording some hitches. While some polling stations had long winding queues others recorded low turn-out compared to the ones that characterized the December 07 voting. Voting at the Tema High School polling station, which has 2,859 voters, was halted for about one hour when confusion broke out between the presiding officer, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) polling agents and voters.

The confusion, which arose over improper setup, resulted in the polling agents blaming the presiding officer for ignoring their advice while the officer maintained that he was the boss at the place. When the problem started there was only one Fire Service personnel at post and he had a hectic time controlling the enraged voters and he called for reinforcement from the Ashaiman Divisional Police Headquarters.

Mr James Aboagye, the Presiding Officer, told the Ghana News Agency that he would not take instructions from anyone. Mr Seth Ocansey, the NDC polling agent, said the presiding officer refused to heed to their advice to properly arrange the tables which were positioned too close to the voters as well as ensure that queues were formed by the voters who were standing in groups. At the Ashaiman Government cluster of schools, voting was smooth at the 10 polling stations in the premises.

As at 0730 hours 60 out of 1,734 voters had cast their votes at the number one polling station of the Ashaiman number two JHS while 50 voters out of 950 had voted at the Ashaiman number three JHS polling station number three as at 0735. By 0750 electoral officers at the TMA number two primary school polling station two were resting as there was no queue. Mr John Adzokatse, presiding officer at the station, said 61 out of the 578 voter population had cast their votes.

There was a long queue at the Divine Healers Primary polling stations one and two, 267 out of 1,531 registered voters had voted at the polling station one and 281 out of 1,724 voters had exercised their franchise at the polling station two.