Festive atmosphere as Ghanaians vote for president, Parliament

For all the talk of people trying to cheat in Ghana's elections on Thursday, the polling was orderly practically across the country, where a festive mood prevailed, election monitors said.

Election Commissioner Kwadwo Afari Gyan -- who on Tuesday said "some registered voters are dead, others have multiple identity cards, some minors have even registered and others could impersonate" -- voiced relief after the polls closed late Thursday afternoon.

"They've gone very well, very peacefully, no major incidents," he told AFP.

People sitting outside a shop across the street from a polling station in Osu Alata, a teeming working-class district of Accra, proudly showed the indelible ink stain on their right thumbs to prove that they had done their civic duty.

They had backed different parties -- and were not shy about divulging which ones -- but chatted together amicably.

Sisters Sarah Lomotey and Margaret Wellington voted differently in this election as well as the 1992 and 1996 votes that legitimized and consolidated the rule of President Jerry Rawlings, in power since 1981.

The charismatic leader must now step down, and has anointed Vice President John Atta Mills as his chosen successor.

Lomotey voted again for Rawlings' National Democratic Congress (NDC) "because of the good work they are doing, the infrastructure and all those things, to continue their job."

Her sister, on the other hand, voted for the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) of John Kufuor "because I just want a change, nothing else."

Mary Lokko, 76, said she voted NDC because "I like the party. I like Rawlings." Then she corrected herself: "Atta Mills."

Two other voters gave the same reason for choosing opposite parties.

NDC voter Fred Tetteyfio: "I like their policies."

NPP voter Nai Simmonds: "They've got good policies."

The site of the polling station where they had voted appeared to have been chosen for the space it offered, albeit in the rubble of a small building that had recently been torn down.

Other polling stations in the vibrant but impoverished district appeared equally spontaneous, with one under an enormous tree in a public courtyard and another lining a street.

By afternoon, this one had moved to the opposite side of the street, possibly according to the progression of the blazing sun.

Even Kufuor, the NPP flagbearer, voted at a roadside polling station arrayed under three coconut trees, drawing up in a black Mercedes with his wife Theresa.

"It looks orderly here. I hope it will be so throughout the country," he said to a knot of journalists who had gathered to see him duly mark his ballot behind a three-sided cardboard screen and slip it into a transparent plastic box.

Tales of skullduggery have flooded the airwaves, with assertions that foreigners who do not speak any of Ghana's 75 languages showed up at some polling stations, as well as minors who had somehow managed to register.

In the most dramatic incident, a man armed with a pistol disrupted voting for nearly an hour at a polling station in Kaneshie, just north of Accra, before being taken away by police.

Reporters from a local private radio station followed the police and saw them release the man, who got into another car and was driven to the "office of a political party," Joy Radio reported.

In another incident, a man was in police custody after being seen trying to wipe the indelible ink off his thumb, the radio station reported.

Elsewhere, police said 48 NPP members were picked up at polling stations because they did not have accreditation to act as candidate agents. They were later released.