Opposition Ahead in Early Election Results

The main opposition candidate in Ghana's presidential election has taken an early lead, official results from a handful of constituencies showed Friday.

John Kufuor, running for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), was ahead in all of the seven constituencies, out of 200, for which preliminary results had been declared by the Electoral Commission after a night of manual ballot counting following Thursday's poll.

In the same constituencies, the NPP was also leading in the vote for a new parliament.

The election in Ghana, a pioneer of African nationalist politics, heralds the end of 19 years in power for President Jerry Rawlings, the country's longest serving head of state since independence from Britain in 1957.

Rawlings, who came to power twice through the barrel of a gun but won multi-party elections in 1992 and 1996, could not run for a third mandate because of a constitutional two-term limit.

Rawlings' vice-president, John Atta Mills, standing for the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), was second behind Kufuor while the five other presidential candidates grabbed only a small percentage of the vote, results showed.

Thousands of people gathered overnight in Accra's Independence Square, where a giant blackboard had been set up, to wait word on the results, which started trickling in slowly in the early hours of Friday.

Singers and dancers did their best to entertain as the crowd grew impatient.

Party officials were reluctant to read too much into the early returns, although the atmosphere at NPP electoral headquarters showed a growing confidence.

Turnout Seen At 50-60 Percent

``The way it's been going so far is at the upper end of our expectations. We are on our way for something historic, but we still have a long way to go,'' Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, NPP campaign director, told Reuters.

``The key thing to watch now is the Volta region, where we know we lost heavily but we still don't know by what margin,'' he said, referring to the traditional NDC stronghold in the east of the country.

NDC secretary-general Alhaji Huudu Yahaya said it was too early to draw any conclusions.

There was no official turnout figure, but electoral observers estimated a turnout of between 50 and 60 percent.

Thursday, polling was mainly calm as people patiently queued up for hours. Electoral officials and foreign observers said voting operations appeared to have generally gone smoothly.

``Things seem to have gone pretty smoothly apart from minor hitches, like a few unsealed ballot boxes,'' said a U.S. observer at a polling station in Accra. ``I think that was due more to disorganization and people not knowing what to do rather than foul play.''

As he voted in Accra, Rawlings said he would respect the poll results as long as the election was ``fair, genuine and sincere.''

``Let us just hope that the election will be without fraud and we will accept the results from the chairman of the Election Commission,'' he told reporters. ``He'd just better be attentive.''

The commission has said it should announce the final results within 72 hours of the vote.