Violence Mars Ghana Runoff Vote

Sporadic clashes and accusations of intimidation marred voting Thursday in this West African nation, where armed soldiers watched over the polls in a runoff election to choose a successor to longtime President Jerry Rawlings.

Protesters stormed a polling station in Accra's residential Odorkor neighborhood shortly after voting started, smashing the ballot box and tearing up the voters' list, security officials said. It was not immediately clear who the attackers were.

Details were sketchy, but witnesses said gunshots were fired near another polling station in the same neighborhood during a scuffle between soldiers and opposition officials. Two people were injured, according to an opposition parliamentarian interviewed on state-run radio.

Opposition observers also said they had been harassed by government supporters, who prevented them from monitoring voting at some stations in the capital, Accra, the nearby port city of Tema and the eastern Volta Region.

The violence did not appear to deter voters in Accra, however, where long lines formed before dawn amid a heavy security presence in many neighborhoods.

Turnout appeared significantly lower in other parts of the country, where voting progressed smoothly, radio reports said.

Rawlings' chosen successor, Vice President John Atta Mills, faced National Patriotic Party leader John Agyekum Kuffuor in Thursday's ballot after neither received the 50 percent required for an outright win in the first round on Dec. 7.

Kuffuor, a British-trained lawyer and veteran politician, won 48.4 percent of the vote. Mills won 44.8 percent.

Both candidates expressed concern about the reports of violence.

``Let's have the national interest at heart before anything else,'' Mills said after casting his ballot at a University of Ghana polling station in Accra. ``The few incidents I have heard so far are disheartening.''

Kuffuor urged authorities to arrest those responsible for the harassment.

``I am very uncomfortable with the situation,'' he said after casting his ballot at a suburban school near his Accra home.

The elections mark the end of an era for Ghana. Rawlings will step down Jan. 7, after his second term. He won multiparty elections in 1992 and 1996, but is barred by the constitution, which he approved, from running for another four-year term.

Rawlings, a charismatic former fighter pilot, has dominated Ghanaian politics for two decades. Originally a military dictator, he embraced democratic and free-market ideals in the 1990s, becoming a darling of Western donors.

But his overwhelming popularity has dimmed in recent years, as the country's once-thriving economy declined. Prices for Ghana's chief exports, cocoa and gold, plummeted as oil prices rose.

Many Ghanaians now say they would welcome a change of government.

``I am out here again in fulfillment of my desire to contribute to change,'' said taxi driver Eric Ayivor, who voted in Accra. ``If I have to, I will vote 10 times to bring about that change.''

Ghana's ruling National Democratic Congress, hoping to convince voters that its candidate represents change, distanced itself from Rawlings ahead of the runoff vote.

In the past, Mills, 56, has stressed the development and stability that the Rawlings regime brought to Ghana.

Kuffuor, 62, has campaigned on a platform of ``positive change,'' calling attention to repeated accusations of corruption and human rights abuses against Rawlings' government.