Elections expected to take place at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) for weekend students this morning to elect new Students Representative Council (SRC) Executives were disrupted by protests.
Three level 400 students who led the action prevented electorates from exercising their right and carried ballot boxes mounted away.
They raised concerns about the late start of the exercise, describing it as a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise weekend students.
They packed up the ballot boxes away in a store on the campus as the school’s Electoral Commission (EC) officer and police watched on helpless.
One of the three students, Caleb Nii Boye conveyed their grievances to Citi News saying, “for us at the weekend school, we felt that they haven’t been fair to us for the past three years. And we wouldn’t want the same mistakes that have been happening over the years to happen again this year. It’s the reason myself and my colleagues decided to halt the process.”
“The student body is in support of what we are doing. The aspirants are also in support of what we are doing,” he added.
Elections were to start at 7 am and the protesters were concerned that the school’s EC was yet to print ballots as at 10 am [on Sunday].
“Two years ago, elections in the school started at 1:20 pm…this year, we decided we were going to put a stop to all these things,” Caleb Nii Boye recalled.
He suggested that the elections should be postponed until after the Easter break.
Meanwhile, the executives of the Students Representative Council met with the GIJ Electoral Commission over the matter.
Following the meeting, a statement from the GIJ EC was released officially calling off the elections.
“By this notice, the Electoral Commission renders an unqualified apology to all Stakeholders of this years’ elections,” the statement said.
It added that “the commission shall communicate every information to the students in due time.”
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