Freda Prempeh going through the verification
MANY VOTERS at Techimantia in the Tano South Constituency of the Brong Ahafo region who were initially rejected by the verification machine in yesterday?s polls heaved a sigh of relief after a new African technology was devised to enable them exercise their franchise.
What has now become the ?Tomato Magic? was adopted by the entire constituency when the first voter at the Techimantia SDA Church Polling Centre was not verified by the machine after several attempts.
The Presiding Officer, Ofori Gyekye Smith, told?DAILY GUIDE?that the first voter who did not understand why the machine should reject him after several trials went home and brought fresh tomatoes, cut it open and used the juice to clean his fingers.
According to the Presiding Officer, the man afterwards was verified by the machine to vote to the admiration of all.
He said voters, numbering about ten, who were rejected by the machine, used the tomato magic to go through the verification successfully and cast their ballots.
However, the magic could not work for 94-year-old Maame Sara, who after cleaning her fingers with the tomato was rejected by the machine on several occasions.
The unperturbed old lady told?DAILY GUIDE?that she will not go home until the verification machine had verified her to cast her ballot.
At the time the paper visited the centre around 9:55am 100 out of the 620 total registered voters had cast their ballots.
Voting was generally peaceful at all the polling stations this reporter visited at Derma, Techimantia, Bechem and Dwomo.
The incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) for the area who is seeking re-election, Andrews Adjei-Yeboah, decried the use of ?machoism? by his opponent which he described as a new phenomenon in the area.
He said until this year?s elections people in the constituency had voted in a peaceful atmosphere in all previous elections.
At Tano North, with the exception of Terchire R/C School Polling Centre where there was a breakdown of the verification machine, no major incident occurred at the constituency at the time of our tour around 2:30pm.
Boakye Elvis, the Presiding Officer of the Terchire R/C Polling Centre, told?DAILY GUIDE?that the battery of the machine became weak and voting came to a halt for 30minutes until the battery was replaced.
When this reporter got to the centre around 2:40pm, the problem had been rectified and voting was going on smoothly. At the time of the visit, 400 out of the 743 total voters had voted.
Freda Prempeh, the NPP parliamentary candidate for the area was among the early voters at the Duayaw Nkwanta SDA Church Polling Station.
She was upbeat about a landslide victory for Nana Akufo-Addo and herself. She told newsmen that the wind was blowing for a one-touch victory for the NPP.
According to her, unlike the NDC who did not have a clear message for the electorate, Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP have a good message for Ghanaians and the people of Ghana will vote for the NPP based on the message.
She called on the Electoral officials to be impartial in the discharge of their duties to ensure free and fair elections.
She also asked NPP agents to be vigilant to track any evil machinations by the ruling party to ensure peaceful elections.
FROM Fred Tettey Alarti-Amoako, Techimantia
