There has been no indication of voter apathy in Ghana where large sections of the population have been heading out to vote in Monday’s general elections despite lingering fears about the raging coronavirus, an expatriate has told APA.
Over 17 million people are eligible to vote for president and 275 MPs, according to the Electoral Commission of Ghana.
“Covid or no Covid, people are going out in their large numbers to vote for the candidates of their choice” said the anonymous foreign worker based in the capital Accra.
He said there is very little regard for Covid-19 protocols such as wearing face masks, wiping their hands with sanitizers and observing physical distancing while in queues around polling stations.
“Let’s vote and talk Covid afterwards” he quoted a light-hearted voter at an Accra polling station as saying.
Ahead of the polls, the Electoral Commission has been running sensitization campaigns targeting prospective voters on health safety guidelines with strict instructions to election officials to apply them on polling day.
“In some parts of Accra, ordinary people don’t seem to care about the coronavirus as they queue very close to each other while waiting for their turn to vote” he added.
“Covid-19 protocols like all other protocols seem to be for high people not for the common man in the streets of Ghana…they are not bothered to respect the protocols” the expatriate who has been living in the Ghanaian capital for over seven years pointed out.
He said all that ordinary Ghanaians care about in the weeks and days leading to the election are their most immediate needs like food on the table, school fees and water and electricity bills.
Meanwhile 300m-long queues have been witnessed in some polling stations in Accra and the second largest city Kumasi especially in schools and church premises large enough to contain teeming crowds of voters.
To date over 52, 000 people have tested positive for the coronavirus since Ghana reported its first case of the respiratory illness in March.
325 people have died of Covid-19.
WN/as/APA