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January 2, 2009

Voting Underway in Ghana's Last Constituency
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http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=2146DC6:A6F02AD83191E1606AE685ACEC9CCD8130EB2FA2E66CBB22&
 
Ghanaian President John Kufuor is appealing for calm as ruling party
boycotts delayed runoff vote over security concerns 
Voting is under way in a single electoral constituency in Ghana that
could decide the nation's next leader. Ghanaian President John Kufuor is
appealing for calm as his ruling party boycotts the delayed runoff vote
over security concerns. ECOWAS observer watches woman casting her vote
in Nkawas, in Tain constituency, 02 Jan 2009Voters in the remote Tain
district went to the polls Friday in a delayed vote that could finally
end Ghana's hard-fought, tightly-contested race to succeed President
Kufuor. A shortage of ballot papers during last Sunday's runoff forced
the revoting in Tain when Ghana's Electoral Commission said it could not
name a winner without those results. With nearly nine million ballots
cast, opposition candidate John Atta-Mills leads ruling-party candidate
Nana Akufo-Addo by just over 23,000 votes. So the 53,000 registered
voters in Tain could well decide Ghana's next president. During the
first round of presidential balloting December 7, Atta-Mills narrowly
won the Tain constituency, edging out Akufo-Addo by fewer than 1,300
votes. Ghana's ruling National Patriotic Party tried to block Friday's
revoting in Tain, going to court to postpone the vote because of what it
said were security concerns in the district. When that failed, the
ruling party said it would not take part. Election observers in Tain
Friday said the district was calm, with hundreds of soldiers and police
deployed to keep order. Representatives of the opposition National
Democratic Congress were present at the polling station but there were
no official observer from the ruling party. Ghana's President John
Kufuor, 03 July 2007 President Kufuor says Ghanaians can count on
security forces to remain neutral. In a statement read on national
radio, the president appealed for calm until the final results are
announced. He said it is important to meet the constitutional timetable
of handing-over power January 7, so he is urging all stakeholders to
yield to the authority of the electoral commissioner. President Kufuor
said any outstanding issues c
an be settled later by due process. Lawyers from his party are seeking a
court order to prevent the electoral commission from announcing any more
results, but that case has been adjourned until next week when the
winner may well be known. With all but the Tain votes counted,
opposition candidate Atta-Mills has 50.13 percent of the vote. The
ruling party's Akufo-Addo has 49.87 percent. Akufo-Addo won the first
round of balloting. But because no candidate received more than 50
percent of the votes cast, he and Atta-Mills went head-to-head in a
second round that was to decide the winner. Now the contest hangs on the
results of revoting in Tain and the Electoral Commission's investigation
of allegations of vote fraud by both the ruling party and the
opposition. The electoral commission says its examination of alleged
fraud in the Ashanti and Volta districts will be factored into the final
outcome. The commission has given no indication about when those
investigations might be completed or when a winner might be announced.
Whoever wins will rule with a decidedly different parliament as the
ruling party lost its legislative majority in the first round of voting.


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