Ghana’s seventh presidential and parliamentary elections in the fourth republic are underway nationwide.
Over 15 million voters will be casting their ballots across 28,992 polling centres in the country’s 275 constituencies.
Reports from Citi News’ correspondents nationwide indicate that generally, election materials were delivered on time and that the polls were generally opened minutes after the stipulated time.
There were, however, some polling centres that received their election materials late. Some polling stations in the Tafo Constituency in the Ashanti Region were yet to receive the electoral materials as, for instance, in Pankrono Primary Polling station, electoral materials arrived 5 mins before 7am.
There are long winding queues at most polling centres Citi News visited, with the average time voters cast their ballot ranging from 2 to 3 minutes.
Thousands of the over 15 million voters decided to get a head start by queuing as early as 11 hours to the opening of polls.
One of the earliest reported queues was at the Freeman Methodist polling center in Suame in the Ashanti Region as the first person arrived at around 8:30pm on Tuesday night according to Citi News’ Kojo Akoto Boateng who is heading Citi FM’s coverage of the elections in the Ashanti Region.
Seven candidates including the incumbent John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the presidential candidate of the largest opposition party, New Patriotic Party, (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, will contest the presidential polls.
Also contesting in the presidential elections are the flagbearers of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Dr. Edward Mahama, the National Democratic Party (NDP), Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings and the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom.
Jacob Osei Yeboah, who also contested the polls in 2012 is the only independent candidate in the race.
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
