By Solomon T. Gaye
The Presidential run-off election recorded a low turnout in Ganta, Nimba County.
The election kicked off at about 8:00 am, in line with NEC pronouncement, but many of the precincts visited during the exercise were poorly populated.
Speaking to this paper at one of the centers at small Ganta, former DEO, David Kizel, commended the peaceful nature of most of the precincts in the area, but lamented the poor turnout.
“The turnout for the first election was very high and encouraging, but the second round is the opposite, with very low attendance at the various centers along the Garr Belt,” Kizel said.
Another observer at the John Wesley Pearson campus in Ganta, Martha Sieh, spoke along the same lines, explaining that the exercise leading to the casting of ballots is ongoing, but electorates are not pouring in to vote.
At various precincts in Ganta like the Francis Nyan Manweah Public School, John Wesley Public School Campus, Zoekehseh Public School, among others, under the watchful eyes of the Joint Security and election observers, voters were seen in poorly populated queues waiting to cast their votes.
Nimba contains 736 precincts, as well as nine electoral districts, and being the second most populated county in the country, after Montserrado, it is a vote-rich hotspot, which made it a hotly contested county in the first round, often spiraling into electoral violence that led to the loss of a few lives and damage of properties.
Unity Party, during the October 10, 2023, Presidential and Representative Election, topped ruling CDC in Nimba with over hundred thousand votes, with the county believed to be a major stronghold of UP.
