Election Regions 15 Tema

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.