Okaikwei North NDC Parliamentary Election Under Tension

Voting to select a parliamentary candidate for the National Democratic Congress at the Okaikwei North constituency has generated a massive tension at the Immaculate Conception Basic School.

The Ghana News Agency observed that the tension was due to the identification of different names on the Electoral Commission’s voters’ register as compared to that on the voter’s Identification Cards (ID) of some of the electorates.

Four candidates are contesting in the constituency namely, Richard Kwarshie Kudjordjie, Malik Adama, Abdul Nasiru Abass and Theresa Lardi Awuni.

The different names of delegates resulted in a number of the electorates joining a queue for a long period just to cast their ballots, a situation they started complaining angrily about and thereby generating harsh verbal conflict, which almost resulted in physical attacks.

However, the police attended to the situation to calm tempers down, even though, some electorates were still uncomfortable with the situation. Mrs Eunice Yeboah Quaye, the District Electoral Officer told the GNA that the situation to her, was not serious because the Electoral Commission (EC) officials had to ensure that names on their register corresponded with those on the ID cards of the electorates.

She said the spelling of delegates’ names on their voter’s register as compared to that of the EC’S voters’ register also caused the disagreement between the EC officials and delegates.

Again, some delegates did not know exactly where they were supposed to vote and therefore joined wrong queues, which made it difficult to find their names.

Therefore, the party Chairmen at each of the centres were directing the delegates to join the right queues and ensured that those who had already casted their votes were refrained from entering the voting centre until the 17:00 hours when counting began.

Mrs Quaye said 1,052 delegates were expected to cast their votes and as at the 10:00 hours, over 300 had already cast their votes.

The Ghana News Agency observed four security personnel on post.