NDC to use decentralized polling station approach

National Democratic Congress (NDC) will adopt a decentralised polling station approach for Saturday, February 23 Presidential primaries across the country.

Mr Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, the General Secretary, who announced this at a News conference in Accra, said the move was necessary to avoid external infiltration and impersonation.

He said the Party had engaged the Ghana Police Service to be in charge of security in all the 275 polling stations across the country, and personnel to be deployed to the centres should be officers who were working in those districts and must display their name tags without any mask.

The General Secretary said they demanded that the officers identified themselves properly because “if you are applying the law, there is no need putting on masks”.

He said NDC as a party would not deploy any person in the name of security and would not allow any Party T-Shirt sor Aspirants’ T-shirts at the polling stations.

Mr Asiedu-Nketia said they had picked intelligence that thugs were deployed across the country to wear NDC T-shirts to infiltrate and create confusion and mayhem to tag the NDC as a party of violence as done in Kumasi recently.

He noted that, “this led to our action to do the decentralised polling stations to defuse the plans of infiltration and impersonation”, and that those that are bordered on National Security are referred to the directorate”.

He said the Party hierarchy had informed their members that no Candidate’s T-shirt or paraphernalia would be allowed within certain parameters of the polling centres.

The General Secretary said, motorbikes would not also be allowed within the vicinities of the polling centres and urged the delegates, to park their motorbikes at safe locations outside the parameters of the polling stations before voting.

Mr Asiedu-Nketia announced that they had special arrangement with the Electoral Commission for delegates coming from certain conflict areas such as Jaman South, Saboba, Chereponi, Bole and Bimbilla, Nkonya and Alavanyo to close voting at 1500 hours to enable them to conclude everything before curfew hours.

About 260,000 delegates are expected to vote in the primaries to endorse one of the seven Presidential aspirants to contest the 2020 election.

There would be an additional polling centre at the National Headquarters to serve foreign branches, members of the Election Committee and some of the members of the National Council of Elders, who declared their intention to vote at the Headquarters polling station.

Those foreign branches in Cote d’Ivoire and Liberia would cast their ballots in Jomoro constituency in the Western region for the sake of proximity, and those from Togo, Benin and Nigeria would also vote in Ketu South constituency.

Mr Asiedu Nketia said they had set up a complaint Centre at the Headquarters and urged the public to call 0302222265 or 0505606253 in case of any misunderstandings for help.

He announced that the Party would do its own collation aside the Electoral Commission and the agents of the aspirants, to serve as a control measure on the exercise, adding that the final results would be announced at the National headquarters.