<<Print>>

Two thousand policemen are on stand-by for deployment to the 275 polling stations designated for the New Patriotic Party�s (NPP�s) presidential primary on Saturday, October 18. The policemen will be deployed in at least groups of five for each polling centre on the election day, after a briefing on October 17. This will include patrol and stand-by and 1,375 policemen for the polling stations and others at the NPP Headquarters, regional centres and the declaration centre. Regional police commanders will be in command of operations within their jurisdictions, while tactical operations on the ground at the various polling stations will be overseen by officers in charge not below the rank of Superintendent. Disclosing these to the Daily Graphic in an interview yesterday, Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of Public Affairs of the Ghana Police Service, Rev. David Nenyi Ampah-Bennin, said, �It is our constitutional mandate to deploy and ensure that elections of this nature are protected.� He said where a region was not able to cater for the full complement of policemen, others would be moved from other regions to beef up the numbers. He said the police would be employing a tactical operation that would involve a three-tier deployment strategy on Saturday. Arrest of violators Rev Ampah-Bennin cautioned that any delegate who committed an electoral offence would be arrested and processed for court. He cited some of the offences as an attempt to vote twice, the wielding of implements that could cause harm and any intent to disrupt the electoral process, such as stealing a ballot box. He advised that delegates who had any issues must not take the law into their own hands but seek redress from appropriate quarters. Voting A total of 141,432 delegates are expected to cast their votes for their preferred candidates from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday at 275 polling stations chosen for each of the constituencies. The delegates include 10 national executive members, 40 members of the council of elders, 27 past national officers, 45 members from external branches, 432 regional executives, among other delegates. After the voting, counting will start immediately and the results transmitted to collation centres at the regional headquarters of the party. From the 10 regional headquarters, the results will be sent to the strong room at the regional Electoral Commission (EC) offices, where officials will also collate the results from all the constituencies in the region. The EC will then declare the results at a venue in Accra to be announced later.