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Tensions rose at Koforidua Police Headquarters during the Eastern Region’s Special Voting exercise.
Tijani Mikano, the New Juaben South Organizer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), battled with security agents after refusing to leave the voting boundary.
He insisted that he would only cooperate if the New Patriotic Party (NPP) representative who was purportedly campaigning in the restricted area was also removed.
“The EC has given us a parameter in which we should remove ourselves from the voters, but the NPP is campaigning in the queue, so I chose to campaign with my team as well, but the EC says it is not allowed. “If it’s not allowed, they should drive the others back so the voters can vote,” he described the event.
The scene quickly turned into a heated standoff, attracting the attention of voters, security forces, and Electoral Commission (EC) officials.
Speaking with the Presiding Officer, Darlington Annan, he stated that the NDC executive was mislead into believing that the NPP agents had exceeded the perimeter.
He stated that the NPP person had been told to leave the queue for causing a disturbance, but the parties’ miscommunication escalated the fight.
“He [the NPP representative] was moving around and was asked to move from the queue because he was causing a nuisance to the voters so he was advised to leave the queue, but as he was going, the opponent thought he was interfering so they wanted to know what was happening and in the process, it escalated to a debate between them,” he told me.
Kofi Siaw, JoyNews’ Eastern Region correspondent, said it needed the intervention of Electoral Commission officials and police personnel to resolve the confusion.
He stated that they spoke with both parties and exited the property.
He stated that calm has since returned to the area, and voting is still happening.
Meanwhile, voting in the Western Region has gone smoothly and peacefully, with few to no reported issues.
Although special voting went conducted in 14 regions on Monday, Eastern and Western regions were unable to vote because the Electoral Commission recalled and ordered the rewriting of their ballot papers due to a mistake discovered with some ballot papers.
