Over 1,000 Candidates Contest Delta Council Polls Today
Local government election takes place across the 25 local government areas of Delta State today, with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) poised to clinch most of the chairmanship and councillorship positions in contention.
A total of 1,089 candidates are vying for different chairmanship and councillorship seats in the 25 local government councils on the platforms of the 16 political parties, including the PDP and the APC.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) is apparently the only party among the about 16 political parties that fielded candidates for the exercise.
The PDP carried out an aggressive state-wide campaign in the countdown to the election holding today, and observers have described as unprecedented, the seriousness the party attached to the process. The PDP, led by the state governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, and the state party chairman, Chief Kingsley Esiso, former governors, Chief James Ibori and Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan, as well as serving, and past, national and state legislators were all involved in the campaign that lasted for several weeks.
Governor Okowa, who was present and led the campaign at all the rallies held in each of the local government headquarters, did not mince words that the party’s interest was beyond today’s voting exercise as it was actually meant to test-run its electoral machinery towards 2019 general election.
Nevertheless, leaders of the APC, including the former deputy national chairman of the PDP, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, the state chairman, Mr. Jones Orhue, and the 2015 APC governorship candidate, Chief O’Tega Emerhor, have vowed to surprise the PDP at the council polls today, as the party attempts to show its readiness to wrest power from the PDP in the state in 2019.
Nevertheless, the Delta State Electoral Commission (DSIEC) has asked the electorate to turn out en-masse to cast their votes for candidates of their choice without fear of molestation, but warned that there would be no room for all forms of electoral malpractice, including rigging, violence, the use of thugs and snatching of ballot boxes.