No ballot papers: New Juaben South NDC elections called off

The New Juaben South NDC constituency elections in the Eastern Region  has been called off after several hours of waiting without ballot papers. Delegates arrived at Eredec Hotel, the centre for the exercise as early as 7am on Saturday June 23. Proceedings were moving smoothly after Regional Chairman Bismark Tawiah Boateng delivered his address and called for a peaceful process. One after the other, all 58 aspirants also gave their last one minute campaign speech in efforts to convince  delegates to vote for them. About 1,242 delegates from 138 branches were expected to vote in the constituency elections today. As at 12pm when there was no sign of the ballot papers arriving, Acting Deputy Secretary of the NDC, Annor Dompreh announced that the papers would arrive within 5 minutes and pleaded with the delegates to be tolerant. But some delegates would not accept any excuse, suspecting the regional executives may have something up their sleeves. But even up till 12:40 pm ballot papers had still not arrived. The delegates then began flaring up, accusing the regional executives of deliberately delaying the process to rig the elections for their favourites. Police personnel had to step in to calm rising tempers as some delegates attempted to move the Electoral Commission’s set up for the elections. At 2 pm the election committee members and aspirants had an emergency meeting where they finally agreed to call off the elections. Officials of the Electoral Commission were then asked to pack their equipment, which they did and left the venue as well as the frustrated and disappointed delegates. Early on, a member of the electoral committee Catherina Ayakwa, had tried to assuage the anxiety at the centre telling delegates that it was normal for such thing to occur in elections and asked delegates to exercise restraint. She explained ballot papers were printed in Accra and had to be delivered to them in the Eastern Region, but it never arrived until everything was brought to an end. It was however not announced when the constituency elections would come off. Meanwhile, delegates in Sagnarigu Constituency nearly disrupted the exercise there after allegations of over voting. Many left the election centre amidst confusion with the Member of Parliament for Sagnarigu constituency, A.B.A. Fuseini being escorted from the venue as some delegates threatened to beat him and some executives of the party. Read: We need credible persons to restore core founding principles of NDC – Rawlings to voters By Yvonne Neequaye | 3news.com | Ghana]]>