Politics of Saturday, 24 August 2019
Source: Graphic.com.gh
2019-08-24
Voters queue at the polling center
Eleven of out the 23 constituencies in the Central region are not voting in the on-going elections of the National Democratic Congress to elect parliamentary candidates.
The reasons are varied including constituencies with unopposed candidates, disqualification, contentions and mistakes with ballot papers.
The Cape Coast North, Upper Denkyira East and Upper Denkyira East constituencies had sole candidates who were unopposed and were therefore elected by popular acclamation.
The Effutu and Awutu Senya East elections were put on hold due to some misunderstandings.
The Central Regional Director of elections of the NDC, Mrs Gloria Koomson told Graphic Online “the party felt it was not safe to have the elections in these two constituencies. These don’t even have dates for their elections yet. A date would be fixed later.”
Assin Central pending
The election for the Assin Central constituency is also pending because its only candidate was disqualified by the vetting committee. “We would have to open fresh nominations in Assin Central.
The Agona East election has a court injunction placed on it, following a last minute case filed by a member of the party.
Elections in the Mfantseman constituency and Assin South were also postponed because of last minute clearance hitches.
“These have however been rectified and a date would be fixed soon,” Mrs Koomson said.
She said so far the elections had been smooth in the 12 constituencies voting.
Voting constituencies
The voting constituencies include the Twifo Hemang lower Denkyira, Asikuma Odoben Brakwa, Agona West, Gomoa Central, Ekumfi and Abura Asebu Kwamankese.
Others are Komenda Edina Eguafo Abrem, Twifo Atti Mokwa, Awutu Senya West, Gomoa East, Cape Coast South and Gomoa West constituencies.
We have been monitoring the elections and we are happy about the process so far,” she said.
Voting was going on at the town hall in Cape Coast for the Cape Coast South constituency.
A total of 58 delegates had cast their vote at of 10.05am when Graphic Online got to the centre.
The Returning officer at the station, Mr Stephen Kwamina Gyakye said they were no issues with voting.
“So far we have no problems. The polling station executives are helping us with issues of identification”
