EC to conduct special voting on December 4

Agona Swedru (C/R), Nov. 11, GNA - The Electoral Commission (EC) would conduct special voting for electoral and security officials throughout the country on December 4, 2004.

This is to enable the electoral and security officials, who would be supervising the elections on December 7, to exercise their franchise without disrupting their duties on the day of the elections.

Mr Serebour Quaicoe, Agona District Electoral Officer, announced this when he met representatives of political parties in the District to discuss how best to conduct the elections in a peaceful manner.

Parties represented were the New Patriotic Party (NPP), national Democratic Congress (NDC), People's National Convention (PNC) and Convention People's Party (CPP) and representatives of two Independent Candidates from the Agona West and Agona East constituencies.

He said the official electoral lists would be used for the special voting exercise and urged those, who would be performing special duties on the Decembe 7, to endeavour to cast their votes on December 4, 2004. Mr Quaicoe told the political parties that the EC would try as much as possible to ensure free and fair elections.

Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Hackman Afful, Agona Nyakrom District Police Commander, cautioned party supporters and leaders not to use abusive language in their electioneering campaigns. He warned party supporters to desist from pasting abusive posters on the houses of their opponents since they would not go escort free when caught.

Mr Afful also asked them to stop defacing and destroying posters because it was an offence.

He appealed to the party leaders to notify the Police at least five days before holding political rallies to enable the Police to know of their programmes on time to avert clash and chaos.

Mr Debrah Lamptey, Agona West NPP Constituency Secretary, appealed to Independent candidates using President john Agyekum Kufuor's posters to campaign for themselves to stop since it was having negative effects on NPP Parliamentary candidates.

He cited the example of Mr Paul Tawiah, an NPP activist who decided to go solo after losing the primaries and was using President Kufuor's pictures, adding that, they could campaign for President Kufuor but should desist from doing so in the parliamentary elections.