Some suspected thugs of the opposition National Democratic Congress, NDC on Tuesday afternoon in a Rambo style stormed one of the polling stations at Assin-Praso in the Assin North Constituency of the Central Region firing gunshots to disrupt the by-election.
The thugs wearing masks, stormed the Praso polling station and fired gunshots which scared the voters and the EC officials to run for cover.
As a result of that, one person was injured and was rushed to a nearby clinic for medical attention.
The National Organiser of NPP, Henry Nana Boakye who was monitoring the process rushed to the scene and later informed the Police, to quickly deployed a reinforcement team to the scene but the hooligans fled before they arrived.
The General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Justin Kodua Frimpong who expressed worried about the incident said that the gunshots were fired in the stronghold of the NPP as a way to scare supporters of the governing party from voting.
He expressed to the media that “Ask yourself how did it happen? Where you stand now, look at the statistics it is the stronghold of the NPP, how come you are having gunshots here but you are not having gunshots elsewhere?
“What does it mean? It is an election and people want to intimidate our supporters, people want to scare our supporters from coming out to vote. We are expecting the Police to do better, we don’t want it to get to a point whereby we will be forced to defend ourselves,” he added.
The NPP also accused the Police of failing to arrest the NDC thugs who are intimidating the NPP members.
The NDC, who are bent to retain the seat have resorted to frustrate the electoral process at the NPP strongholds, by deploying their thugs to the centres to create confusion.
At Assin-Breku, the NDC leaders who stormed the voting centres were accusing the NPP of vote buying with money which forced their thugs to create confusion at the centres.
The situation forced the Police to intervene but the NPP members say the Police are intimidating them by arresting their members and allowing the NDC thugs to create unnecessary tension at the voting centres.
At some of the centres, the NDC thugs were harassing the voters, especially at the NPP strongholds putting fear in them not to come out to vote.
The presence of the NDC thugs at the centres ends up frustrating the Electoral Commission officials which forced the Police to deploy more armed men to the venue to maintain law and order.
The NPP Polling agents and observers were harassed by the NDC and some of the Police officers deployed there to maintain law and order.
In that process, some of the NPP supporters including polling agents who protested against the Police intimidation were arrested and whisked to the Assin Central Police Station. They were later discharged.
The situation as of 11am brought tension at the Assin Breku polling stations, which forced the National Officers of the NPP led by the General Secretary, Justin Kodua Frimpong, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, the Deputy Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo Markin among others to rush to the voting centres to rescue the situation.
The NPP officials after back and forth with the Police managed to bring the situation under control to calm the NPP members who were chanting war songs against the Police.
BY Daniel Bampoe