NPP: Ghana a 'nation of shoeshine boys'

Opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) on Sunday accused outgoing President Jerry Rawlings of creating a "nation of shoeshine boys", and vowed to put the country's economy back on its feet.

At the final, and by far the largest, NPP rally before Thursday's presidential and parliamentary election, tens of thousands of people poured into Accra's Indafa Park for the event, deliberately spaced two days ahead of the campaign-ending National Democratic Congress (NDC) rally to avoid violence.

"The legacy of the NDC government is a nation of shoeshine boys," said NPP lawmaker Ismail Ashitey, promising jobs and better education in a program to revive the west African country's economy, which the shadow justice minister, Nana Akufo Addo, said is in "a royal mess."

The crowd stood shoulder by shoulder under a blazing sun, sloganeering, cheering, and occasionally dancing, for three hours before their presidential candidate, John Kufuor, finally made his appearance.

"What I see before me is the people's power," he shouted, his voice hoarse from the hectic final days of campaigning. "That is the power to demand accountability of the government."

Kufuor, who lost to Rawlings in 1996, added: "Ghana is starting afresh. ... We'll make history by using our vote to remove the incompetent, corrupt government of Jerry John Rawlings."

The NPP contested the last two elections, but boycotted the parliamentary vote in 1992 and disputed the result of the 1996 election that won Rawlings his second and final term in office after 19 years as Ghana's military or civilian ruler.

Speaker after speaker warned against intimidation and fraud, repeatedly calling out "no photo ID?" for the response "no vote!", a reference to a heated dispute over the Electoral Commission's offer to accept the old thumbprint ID under strict conditions on Thursday.

The opposition says the measure is a prelude to fraud, and the Supreme Court is to rule on the issue Monday.

But Kufuor said that whichever party wins, "the NPP will accept the result."

Like most speakers, Kufuor's anti-NDC rhetoric focused on Rawlings, instead of his opponent, incumbent Vice President John Atta Mills, dismissed as a future "puppet" by the NPP.

Noting that Rawlings has been a guest at the White House, Kufuor urged the onetime coup-maker to emulate US President Bill Clinton, who "is going out of power so gracefully."

Outside the venue, hundreds of NPP supporters held a raucous street party, many of them with their faces painted in the party colors of red, white and blue, blaring car horns and shouting "no photo ID - no vote".

Tensions have risen, along with allegations of intimidation, 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.

Audrey Gadzekpo of the University of Ghana's School of Communication Studies said Saturday that the election is "too close to call," adding that the "government is running scared" in the face of the NPP challenge.

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.

If the election leads to a peaceful transfer of power, it will the first in Ghana's 43 years of independence from Britain, and the next president will be the first in 21 years with no ties to the military.

"If it is a success, this will be the first major step towards consolidating the democratic process" in Ghana, analyst Emmanuel Aning of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a public policy think tank, told AFP on Sunday.

However, pointing to an economy that he said would "get worse before it gets better," Aning said: "I don't think Ghana will be in any way an African success story" in the near future.