Special voting in referendum for new regions underway
Special voting in the referendum for the creation of new regions has begun ahead of the main referendum on Thursday, December 27.
Electoral officers, media personnel and security personnel are casting their ballots ahead of the referendum for the six proposed regions which are Ahafo, Bono East, Savannah, North East, Oti and Western North.
For the creation of a region to take effect, there would have to be at least a 50 percent voter turnout with 80 percent of voters voting ‘yes’.
Eyes will be on the Volta Region ahead of processes for the endorsement of the creation of the Oti Region, which has been met with relatively more resistance than in other areas.
Notably, the community of Akpafu Odormi will be boycotting the process.
Special voting within the Oti enclave of the Volta region will see some 1,173 electoral officers and security personnel cast ballots.
The Member of Parliament for Krachi East and Deputy Minister for Sanitation, Micheal Gyato told the media that ebnsuring peace was the priority.
“As you can see, there is no cause for alarm. Everything is going on peacefully. We want to use this medium to tell our brothers and sisters that the election will be peaceful come 27th[December].”
He also called for vigilance amid suspicions there could be some disturbances.
“Our intelligence indicates that people want to come and mar the beauty of this particular election and for that one, we’ve asked our communities to actually stay alert and make sure that nobody comes to mar the beauty of this particular referendum.”
The Electoral Commission has already held a limited voter registration in areas the new regions will cover.
This was after the process was given the green light by the Justice Brobbey Commission, which was set up to look into the requests for the creation of new regions.
Source: citinewsroom