One of the founding members of the incumbent National Democratic Congress (NDC) Martin Amidu, has lamented having to travel more than four kilometers to locate a polling center to exercise his franchise in the party’s ongoing primaries to elect parliamentary candidates and also to endorse the candidature of President John Dramani Mahama for 2016.
Mr. Amidu in an interview with Citi News’ Pius Amihere Aduku in the Madina Constituency where he voted, said although the voting procedure was smooth, the difficulty for him and others had to do with locating their polling centers.
Voting was smooth
“The processes at the polling stations have been smooth. Once you check and find your name in the register, you are allowed to do the presidential and then you do the parliamentary. The difficulty has been about locating the polling station. I for instance I vote at a Madina Church at North Legon.”
“This morning, I had to find my Assembly member to locate where we were going to vote because Adonai [The Polling Center] is not there. It’s Adonai that I went to check my name when the voters’ register was exhibited so the assumption is that we were going back there to vote; suddenly today [Saturday] for the first time, I had to travel more than four kilometers. Imagine I had no car; I would have just returned from Adonai back home and it means that many people who are registered will be disenfranchised and that’s not very good for a democracy,” he lamented.
Such challenges bound to happen
Mr. Amidu, a former Attorney General who is viewed as an ardent critic of the government, however admitted that because the NDC was for the first time voting with an expanded electoral college, such challenges are expected.
“If I didn’t call my Assembly member, I just would have stayed in the house. But in a democracy, it is the civic responsibility of the citizen to vote and that is why I wanted to show example to my colleagues within the NDC that we should all come out and vote. You either vote yes or no according to your conscience; and I have exercised that right. I have now seen some candidates going around to the already known polling stations with vehicles to try and bring people. Can you imagine the cost? And what about if you are a candidate who hasn’t got the means; and this is not fair for the process. The NDC is reputed to be very democratic at least when we founded it; but now people are using various tricks to deprive the ordinary NDC member from having a fair vote. I think next time it could be properly done,” he added.
No comment
Asked whether he was expecting a change on who leads the NDC in the Madina Constituency he said “the incumbent is my brother and I grew up with him from Bawku so I don’t want to make any comment about that. It’s a democratic vote and I must not influence it. The electorate must be able to decide who they want.”
Meanwhile the NDC had explained that it could not use all 28,000 polling stations used in national elections for an internal party exercise.
The party thus combined some polling stations in all constituencies across the country.
In all, some 2 million NDC members are expected to vote in over 8,000 polling centers.
Some 728 aspirants are contesting in the race.
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By: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie/citifmonline.com/Ghana