Ghana Votes for President; Opposition Unhappy

Ghanaians voted Thursday for a successor to their charismatic President Jerry Rawlings amid opposition accusations of intimidation by soldiers and other irregularities.

Opposition standard bearer John Kufuor, runner-up to Rawlings in the last presidential election in 1996, was the pre-poll favorite. He won a December 7 first round with 48.35 percent of votes cast, just short of an outright majority.

Polling officials, witnesses and local radio stations reported that turnout this time appeared lower than in round one and Kufuor and his New Patriotic Party (NPP), who stood to lose most from that, blamed attacks, intimidation and irregularities.

``We have so many reports coming which do not make for a happy process,'' Kufuor told reporters at the polling station where he voted in the capital Accra. ``Soldiers are beating up people for whatever reason, God only knows,'' he added.

All five eliminated candidates rallied to Kufuor, leaving his ruling party rival and Rawlings protege, Vice-President John Atta Mills, with a lot of ground to make up on paper.

Rawlings, who twice seized power in military coups before embracing political and economic reform, has dominated the former British colony for two decades.

He is standing down at the age of 53 because of a constitutional clause denying him a third elected term but remains leader of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Rawlings told the nation Wednesday that he would respect the result and wanted to hand over power ``in the same atmosphere of peace we've grown accustomed to.'' He said the army was deployed to ensure polling was free and fair.

Legislator Stabbed

Mills, 56, said when casting his vote in Accra that he was not aware of any major incidents.

But Kufuor, 63, and his party accused officials in Rawlings's Volta stronghold of stopping their representatives monitoring polling there. They also denounced intimidation, irregularities and attacks elsewhere.

Kwamena Bartels, an NPP member of parliament, told Joy FM radio that he was stabbed in the Ablekuma North constituency in Accra. He said one of his supporters was shot at and wounded.

Witnesses reported a security build-up, especially in Kufuor's Ashanti region. Voters fled a polling station in the local capital Kumasi after soldiers fired in the air, one said.

``This has been the road to a lot of the destabilization that is taking place in Africa. We do not want Ghana to follow in this trail,'' Kufuor said. ``It's not fair by any measure to molest anyone who has only come to express themselves by voting.''

Kufuor and Mills, both Christians, have named Muslim running mates, acknowledging the delicate ethnic, political and religious balance in the gold- and cocoa-producing country that won independence from Britain in 1957.

The country's history since then -- political instability, army rule, bloody purges, socialist central planning, democracy, free-market economic reforms -- epitomizes modern Africa's social and political experience.

Just over 60 percent of Ghana's 10.6 million registered voters turned out in the first round vote on December 7. Kufuor won strong support from town dwellers and the young, such as students, now on holiday. Kufuor's camp has acknowledged a low turnout could whittle away some of his first-round advantage.

In the first round, Kufuor and the NPP broke the traditional stranglehold on power enjoyed by Rawlings's party. They won 99 of parliament's 200 seats against 92 for Rawlings's party.

Polls were due to close at 5 p.m. (1700 GMT). First results and trends are expected overnight with election officials predicting final results within 72 hours.