Candidates head for Accra to mount final campaigns

Candidates in Ghana's presidential and parliamentary elections on Saturday began converging on the capital Accra to mount their final campaigns with five days left before the vote.

The candidates have largely wrapped up their campaigns in the mainly rural northern areas, where opposition candidates sought to chip away at traditional support for the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).

The elections next Thursday will bring an end to the 19-year rule of charismatic President Jerry Rawlings, who has served the maximum two four-year terms as elected president under a constitution he himself initiated.

Opposition candidates have sought to capitalise on the relatively lacklustre persona of NDC candidate, Vice President John Atta Mills, and a growing economic crisis in the west African country brought about by depressed world prices for gold and cocoa, Ghana's main exports.

About half the population of 18 million live in the rural areas, where Rawlings has been especially idolized since he assumed power in 1981, in the second of two successful military coups.

The leading presidential candidates in a field of seven have chosen northern running mates, reflecting the perception that the north is up for grabs in the absence of Rawlings.

Mills and his entourage were headed towards the central city of Kumasi where a rally was set for Saturday evening, and the campaign will reach Accra on Monday, an election observer said.

The main opposition candidate for president, John Kufuor of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), was in Takoradi, a fishing port at the far west of the Ghanaian coast, along with his running mate, Aliu Mahama, on Saturday.

Mahama told AFP in Accra by telephone from Takoradi: "I see a lot of hope. I think we're going to have a straight win."

For an outright win, Kufuor and Mahama must poll more than 50 percent of the vote. Otherwise a second-round runoff, which is widely anticipated, must be held within three weeks.

Kwamena Bartels, the shadow housing minister, said the campaign planned to proceed along the coast, with stops at the colonial-era port of Cape Coast and the town of Mankessim before arriving in Accra ahead of a major rally planned in the capital on Sunday.

NPP campaign official Haruna Armeyao, also in Takoradi, charged that the NDC sought to intimidate villagers in rural areas. "NDC agents are accompanied by soldiers everywhere they go," he said.

The editor of the independent Crusading Guide newspaper, Kweku Baako Jr., said over private radio Saturday that he would investigate reports that soldiers had been issued police uniforms to wear in the rural areas where they are allegedly warning villagers not to vote for opposition candidates.

Tensions have risen, along with warnings over the potential for fraud, as the race has narrowed with the emergence of Goosie Tanoh, a former NDC stalwart who formed the breakaway National Reform Party, as a potential spoiler for the ruling party's chances of a first-round victory.

So far, only sporadic clashes have erupted around the country, mainly between NDC and NPP supporters. In late October, an NDC supporter stabbed to death a backer of the minor People's National Convention party in the only known election-related fatality to date.

A total of seven parties are fielding candidates in both the presidential and legislative elections, with several independents also vying for a place in the 200-seat parliament.