By Ishmael F. Menkor |
Low turnout, but relatively fast process marred the November 14, 2023 presidential runoff election in Nimba County.
Before 12midday, most of the polling places visited were empties, with voters coming sporadically to cast their votes.
“They work is not hard today due to the low turnout, but the process is very fast and peaceful,” said most of presiding officers told the Daily Observer in Ganta.
Before 12pm, the number of votes cast in each of 45 polling places visited within Ganta areas could not reach 200 hundreds.
The entire process began peacefully in Ganta and were also classified as transparent by nearly all the pool watchers, representing the two contesting political parties; the running CDC and the Unity Party.
Each of the party’s representative at the polling places were carrying copy of the NEC Final Registration Role/ FRR, working in line with poll workers of the National Election Commission to checking the voter as the cast their ballot.
In the first round the FRR was not distributed or seen with poll watchers, leaving poll watchers on paper to track voters as they cast their ballot.
In the issue of the low turnout is not known, but many believed that most voters of those who in the first round were trucked from various places to another location.
“We believed the trucking in the first round affect the turnout today, because of those trucked voters in the first round are longer in the race to bring back those that were trucked,” said Mr. Fred Suah, an opinion leader in Ganta.
Even though the voting process appears to be relatively peaceful, but it is tense, with the representatives of the two political parties are watching the polling with an eagle eye to avoid any cheating.
Nimba County witnessed the last day to the runoff with another violence clashes between supporters of Ernest Manseah, who is prospective winner of the representative seat in Nimba District 4 and supporters of encumber Rep. Gunpue Kargon of the same District 4.
The situation brought another panic in the county, three days after another clashed in Nimba District 3, wounding three persons from firearm.
Police is investigating the latest incident, but in the first incident seven persons were said to have been charged and sent to court, but detail surrounding the charges is yet to be established.
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