The 2023 District Level Elections (DLEs) in the Mampong Municipality of the Ashanti Region held on Tuesday 19th and Thursday, 21st December, 2023 was generally peacefully but with relatively low turnout. The DLEs was conducted by the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana. The DLEs was expected to be held in all polling stations in the country on Tuesday 19th December, 2023. However, the elections in some polling stations in the Ashanti and Eastern Regions, including 90 polling stations in the Mampong municipality, were put on hold as a result of some technical challenges the Electoral Commission (EC), Accra encountered. The EC issued a Press Statement on the situation and directed that elections in the affected polling stations be held on Thursday, 21st December, 2023.
The Tuesday 19th December, 2023 DLEs was therefore held in 56 out of the 146 Polling Stations (PS) in the Mampong Municipality whereas the remaining 90 polling stations accordingly had their elections on Thursday, 21st December, 2023. The DLEs in the Mampong Municipality was conducted and supervised by officials of the Electoral Commission at Mampong led by the Municipal EC Director, Mr. Kwabena Karikari. The postponement of the election in some polling stations, however, did not go down well with some section of the electorates in the Municipality. Some of them expressed outright disgust about the postponement and cautioned that though such challenges can arose, it should not be entertained at all as it could have huge implications on the electorates and voters’ interest as well as the elections itself and even be a potential to cause election violence and conflict. Some of them even warned that the EC’s, Accra, behavior relating to the seemingly conduct of DLEs in phases can cause confusion and violence if this is repeated in the 2024 general elections. Regarding the voting process and conduct of the voters, except few polling stations where small misunderstandings were observed and resolved, the election was generally peaceful. Voter turnout was however relatively low. This was largely attributed to voter apathy and low interest shown by most people in the District Level Elections as well as the seemingly low investment to whip up the enthusiasm of voters to promote their active involvement and participation in the DLEs. The EC office in Mampong had adequate logistics to conduct a free, fair and transparent elections. Even though some of the logistics arrived late, the EC officials in the municipality were more than determined to work around the clock to ensure that all election materials needed for the election reach the various polling stations on time. Dispatching of election materials to the various polling stations by Mampong EC started early Tuesday and Thursday morning around 3.48am and were escorted by the security personnel assigned to provide adequate security to ensure that the materials and logistics for the DLEs and the EC officials arrived safely at the polling stations so as to be readily prepared and set for the voting to start at 7am. Polls in the Mampong Municipality in most of the 56 polling stations however started a little late around 8:11am and closed at 5pm. The EC made amends on the Thursday and polls begun in the 90 polling station a little over 7: 12am.
The police and other security personnel were on hand to man the polling stations to ensure that the elections were conducted in a conducive atmosphere devoid of voter intimidation and disturbance to guarantee free, fair and transparent elections. The EC officials did their work professionally according to their mandate and as expected on them and assisted voters to go through the voting process peacefully. Even in some cases voters whose names were in different centres were directed and assisted by EC officials where necessary to exercise their voting rights. The voters and the EC officials cooperated and comported themselves very well as far as the voting processes were concerned to ensure smooth elections, and that contributed in no small measure to make the Security Personnel and the Monitoring Team to have little to do to control and combat any serious electoral violence and election offences. In some polling stations, it was observed during the voting that, the Biometric Verification Devices (DVDs) were malfunctioned. While some people were asked to apply all kinds of means including hand washing, applying hand sanitizers and coca cola and others to see if the machine can verified them, others were made to wait for a while. This delayed the process and discourage some voters who silently left the voting centre without voting, Some centres where DVDs were giving them problems resorted to manual/facial verification to allow voters go through the processes unhindered to enable them exercise their voting rights and cast their ballots. It was also observed that indelible ink was not used to indicate that a voter has voted. To avoid confusion, the EC Officials used Pens to mark names and crossed the bar code against the name of the voter that has been verified and cast their votes. The security was tight. The Mampong Elections Security Taskforce (MEST) made necessary security arrangements for the DLEs to ensure that the elections were free from major violence. These included assigning security personnel to every polling stations to man the place, putting in place 5 Monitoring / Patrol Teams and zoning the municipality into 5 Zones as well as setting up Joint Operation Centre (JOC) to coordinate the elections and relay relevant information to the patrol teams and the security personnel on the field. To ensure efficient utilization of resources and achieve good results, 2 Patrol Teams were initially used for the Tuesday Elections while all the 5 Patrol Teams were used for that of Thursday to guarantee trouble free elections. The Police and other security officers provided needed security in the 146 polling stations with the Patrol Team patrolling the electoral areas and providing back up support to ensure that the EC officials and agents of the contestants conducted their statutory duties without interference and voters cast their votes in an orderly peaceful manner, whilst ensuring the safety and security of stakeholders in the elections.
Regarding the DLEs results, particularly in the assembly member race, over 10 incumbent assembly members including 4 influential persons lost their seats while over 12 were retained including the Assembly member for Yonso, Godwin Anto who is also the Presiding Member (PM) of the Mampong Municipal Assembly. Some incumbent assembly members, however, did not contest at all in the elections and new faces replaced them after winning the contest to add up and make the total elected Assembly members of the Assembly 33. Interestingly, all the 33 elected Assembly members were males. None of the women who contested the assembly membership position did not get the nod to represent their electorates. There were wild jubilations in most of the electoral areas after the results were declared by the EC Returning Officers, especially in areas where new contestants won to become assembly members for the first time. But in all, the DLEs in the Mampong Municipality of the Ashanti Region ended peacefully but with low turnout. There was no post-election violence and the municipality is enjoying peace, and people are going about their daily activities.
