Ghana set to make clean break with Rawlings era

With victory at hand for opposition candidate John Kufuor in Ghana's landmark elections, the country prepares to make a clean break with two decades of rule by former strongman Jerry Rawlings.

"The Ghanaians have voted for change," said unemployed voter Francis Senyo Fiabagdu after Kufuor took an unassailable 15 percent lead over Rawlings' protege, incumbent Vice President John Atta Mills, in Thursday's runoff presidential election.

Provisional results were in for four-fifths of the 200 constituencies, and Electoral Commission chairman Kwadwo Afari Gyan told AFP that Kufuor would win by a "handsome margin" when final results are announced, probably later Friday.

Rawlings, who seized power in a widely popular coup in 1981, legitimized his rule with civilian elections in 1992, and then was reelected in 1996, has vowed to hand over to "the winner, whoever he may be," on January 7.

The occasion will mark the first time in the country's 43 years of independence that one duly elected president will hand over power to another.

Kufuor, a former lawyer and businessman referred to by his admirers as the "gentle giant", has been in Ghanaian politics off and on since the late 1960s, becoming head of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) in 1996 when he lost narrowly to Rawlings.

Atta Mills, with four years as vice president as his only political credentials, is a former law lecturer nicknamed "Prof" with little appeal to the grassroots, Rawlings' mainstay.

The west African country's economic doldrums have been a major factor in the opposition victory, with voters hoping for a remedy to unemployment, high inflation and a weakening currency.

While the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government has been held to account for corruption and financial mismanagement, many also voted to reject the Rawlings legacy of human rights abuses during his 19 years in power, especially as military strongman from 1981 to 1992.

Kufuor will preside over a parliament whose makeup was radically changed in the legislative vote three weeks ago, the NPP clinched 99 of the 200 seats, and the NDC saw its comfortable majority of 133 shrink to 92 seats.

The vote Thursday was marred by numerous reports of violence, intimidation by uniformed men and irregularities in several areas.

The NPP alleged that NDC supporters had carried out a "deliberate policy" of intimidating voters in the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions, two NPP strongholds, during Thursday's polling.

"In contrast to the first round where things went remarkably peacefully ... it's unfortunate that this round was marred by a few isolated but serious incidents," an international observer said Friday.

"It's quite difficult to quantify, (but) the military presence did create an uneasy atmosphere," she told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Nevertheless, she said that the Electoral Commission could not be faulted, and the generally smooth running of the polling was "quite good for democracy in Ghana."

Afari Gyan, the Electoral Commission chairman, lamented the intensive media coverage of the violence, saying that disturbances were limited to 14 of the 20,000 polling stations.

Results from many constituencies showed that Atta Mills had failed to recapture the votes he won in the first round, losing crucial ground in the north where he and and the NDC scored well on December 7.

While a greater number of violent incidents were reported during the vote Thursday, none was as serious as the clashes three weeks ago in northern Bawku town that claimed 10 lives.

Some 130 international observers were on hand for the vote, as well as at least 10,000 local monitors. The first round had been generally deemed free and fair.