Assin North by-election, NDC, NPP trade counter accusations of vote buying

There are rife accusations and counter accusations as much as denial of vote buying among the two major political parties in the by-election ongoing in the Assin North constituency in the Central Region.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) party functionaries have accused the New Patriotic Party (NPP) of buying votes saying they are giving out between 20 cedis and 200 cedis to voters.

The Member of Parliament for Bodi in the Western North Region, Sampson Ahi who is the constituency monitoring the election alleged that there was "blatant" sharing of money to buy votes at the Assin Bereku Presby school park by NPP members and described it as "unfortunate".

He accused the governing NPP of sharing money and asking the people to vote for them.

Meanwhile the same accusations have been leveled against the NDC who have been accused of sharing cutlasses, weedicides and pesticides to voters.

Travel facilitation money 

The Member of Parliament for Bodi, Sampson Ahi who described himself as a lead prompter said he was in charge disbursing monies which he said were from his own resources to people to facilitate their travel to vote.

He indicated that many members of the party would not have turned out to vote if they had not facilitated their travel.

He said that was different from vote buying he stated.

At Akonfudi three men who were allegedly sharing monies quickly dispersed when the Graphic Online team got close.

The Central Regional Secretary of the NPP said the NPP was aware of the many monies being shared by the NDC in Bereku and Akonfudi.

He said this phenomenon was worrying adding that the NPP was not sharing monies.

There was near confusion on the Assin Bereku Presby school park where party functionaries of the two parties traded accusations. 

But many of the residents confirmed that they have been money sharing.

Others indicated that they had heard about the monies being shared but had not received some.

A resident of Assin Bereku, Nana Aboagye Ayim said he had heard about the money sharing but said he had not received any money. "No body can buy my vote. I will vote for development," he stated.

Another resident of Assin Bereku, Thomas Mensah said he was too old for his vote to be bought by money.

Charles Adjei Nifa, also a resident of Assin Bereku said we will go with whom would bring development to this area and not who will pay for the votes. 

Meanwhile voting started in earnest in the Assin North by election.

Eager constituents some of whom have themselves queued at the polling stations since 4am said they were glad to be part of the process.

Materials for the by-elections arrived in all the 99 polling centres on time.

Electoral Commission officials started dispatching voting materials to the polling centres as early as 2am today.

There is a visible police presence at the various polling stations to ensure that the election is free from violence.

At Assin Endwa community centre polling 'A' stations 382 voters were expected to cast their votes while 383 voters were expected to cast their votes at the Endwa Community centre polling station B.

The Presiding officer for the Endwa community centre polling station B, Frank Boakye Yiadom said the exercise had been smooth so far.

"We got here at 5:45 am to set up and everything has been smooth so far."

Sixty-six voters had cast their votes as of 8:10 am at the Endwa community centre polling station B.

The Central Regional Director of the Electoral Commission, Gladys Pinkrah said electoral materials reached all polling stations by 5am this morning.

Mrs Pinkrah said the EC was expecting between 70 and 80 percent turn out of the 41,618 registered voters.