Voters confusing NDC primaries for national polls in U/W
Despite the apparent huge publicity of the parliamentary and presidential primaries of the National Democratic Congress, several voters have shown up at polling stations in Wa, believing it is a national voting exercise.
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Presiding officers at different polling stations said handfuls of persons came around with their national voters ID cards, asking to be processed to vote in an election exclusively reserved for registered members of the NDC.
At the District Labour Office Polling Station, for example, presiding officer Zakaria Abdul Moomin told Graphic Online that those who came with the understanding that it was a national exercise were educated and turned away.
At the 31st December Polling Station, presiding officer Ankibu Faisal said at least one person approached him and asked if she could bring her national voter’s ID to cast her vote when the centre looked quiet with just a few voters waiting for their turns.
He said others, however, came straight over with their voter’s IDs to cast their votes only to realise the exercise was limited to registered NDC members whose names were on the prepared voters’ register.
The trend looked a familiar scenario at other polling stations, including the Community Centre Polling Centre, but despite turning ‘stray’ voters away, the exercise looked orderly at all stations visited by Daily Graphic before noon.
It looked a strange occurrence in the wake of the publicity the NDC primaries across the nation had received, part of it occasioned by the earlier postponement.
At the Community Centre Polling Station, 132 persons out of a total 366 voters had cast their ballots by 10:08 a.m., while 166 voters out of 450 on the register at the District Labour Office Polling Station had cast their ballots by 10:30 a.m.
Across the 11 constituencies in Upper West, however, not even the hotbed of Nadowli-Kaleo Constituency – where university lecturer Roger Galee appears to threaten the seat of incumber and long-serving parliamentary Alban Bagbin – has recorded any violent scenes by 11:30 a.m.
But candidate David Banye – who announced his withdrawal from the race to support Hon. Bagbin – alleged that new discrepancies had emerged on the register of voters, claiming many names had suddenly disappeared.
Graphic Online could not independently verify the claim, which alleged that several persons whose names were contained in the register during the earlier display before the postponement, have had their names deleted mysteriously.