Tamale, Aug 11, GNA - Voting started on a low key in district level elections on Thursday in the Tamale Metropolis as only a handful of voters were at the polling stations to cast their ballots. Voting was smooth and peaceful. All but one or two polling stations the there were no security men about 20 minutes after 0700 hours when voting opened.

Even though both the District Assembly and the Unit Committee elections are being held simultaneously, in most polling stations, only the District Assembly Election is taking place. Most of the electoral areas in the Metropolis had not been able to secure the required number of not less than 10 persons to qualify for the conduct of the Unit Committee election. Some 142 candidates, made up of 139 men and three women, are contesting the district level elections in the 54 electoral areas in the Tamale Metropolis.

Following a chieftaincy crisis in Dagbon in March 2002 during which Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II, King of Dagbon, was killed and the subsequent imposition of a state of emergency in the two areas, the District Level Elections in the Tamale Metropolis and the Yendi District were put on hold.

Interim Management Committees have administered the Tamale Metropolitan and the Yendi District Assemblies for nearly four years now. The government has since lifted the state of emergency as a result of the prevailing peace in Tamale and Yendi, thus paving the way for the district level elections.