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Politics of Thursday, 30 December 2010

Source: GNA

Elections underway in Northern Region

Tamale, Dec. 30, GNA - The District Assembly and Unit Committee Elections are underway in the Northern Region with mixed voter turnout; while some polling stations recorded good turnouts, others had voter apathy= .. As at 0800 hours, not even a single soul had cast a vote at the Kalpohini Estate 93Under Mangoe Polling Station", the Polling Agent Alha= ssan Awudu was at a loss of words as to why none out of 583 voters in the registrar had failed to turn out.

At the AME Zion School, Kukuo Polling Station, 150 people had voted at 0900 hours out of the expectant 1,843.

The SDA Primary Polling Station recorded 14 people out of 1,508 as at 0930 hours while the Dabokpa JHS Polling Station had 250 people voting out of 1,798.

At the Vittin Presbyterian Lay Training Center, 240 people had voted a= s at 0940 hours out of a voting population of 1,201. Security personnel were everywhere and no negative incidents were recorded during the period.

In the Yendi Municipality out of 50 electoral areas, four electoral areas were not voting because their ballot papers had not yet arrived from Accra. The electoral areas affected were Naplado, Nanlzeri, Dobini and Nayilifong.

An incident occurred at Nayilifong South electoral area when a candidate's name, Mahama Iddrisu (Denyinda) was on the ballot paper with a different person's picture against his name. The eligible voters in the area therefore refused to vote as they alleged that the picture on the ballot paper was for another candidate from the Kunkon electoral area in the same Municipality. Mr. John Mensah, the Yendi electoral officer, therefore sought clarification from the Regional electoral officer to postpone the voting there till the problem was solved.

As early as 0700 hours, 15 eligible voters had voted at the Islamic propagation polling station 93A" and at polling station 93B" the Muni= cipal Chief Executive Issah Zakaria was among the four eligible voters to cast their vote as at 0730 hours.

In most of the polling stations visited in Yendi turn out was encouraging. Meanwhile reports reaching the GNA from the Savelugu/Nanton district indicated that there is very high enthusiasm towards the election with most of the farming communities having people in queues to cast their votes.