Ghana ruling party seeks delay in decisive ballot
NSAWKAW, Ghana (Reuters) - Ghana's ruling party said on Thursday it was seeking to delay voting scheduled for Friday in a rural district that will decide a knife-edge presidential election, and said it would boycott the ballot if it went ahead.
Foreign-trained lawyers John Atta Mills and Nana Akufo-Addo are vying to lead the West African country as it prepares to start pumping oil in 2010, but Sunday's run-off was so tight a final constituency due to vote on Friday will decide the outcome.
"We have determined that conditions will not be conducive for a free and fair election to be held tomorrow, and if there is one we'll not be part of it," Arthur Kennedy, a spokesman for Akufo-Addo's New Patriotic Party (NPP) told Joy FM radio.
"We're concerned about the safety of ordinary citizens and all of us. We expect that there will be no voting," he said.
NPP lawyer Tawia Akyea told the station earlier he was seeking an injunction to have the ballot delayed. It was not clear when a court would consider that request.
Problems with last Sunday's presidential run-off ballot meant voting failed to take place in the rural constituency of Tain, in the cocoa-producing region of Brong Ahafo. Ghana is the world's No. 2 cocoa grower after neighbouring Ivory Coast.
With just over 23,000 votes separating the two main candidates after ballots were counted from Ghana's 229 other constituencies, Tain's 53,000 electors will decide the outcome, thrusting the sleepy farming area into the political limelight.
Mills supporters, many of whom began celebrating when he was declared narrowly ahead on Tuesday, went from house to house in Tain's district capital Nsawkaw canvassing on his behalf.
Hundreds of soldiers and armed police were deployed there and in other towns in Tain on Thursday but the district appeared calm. At a large security checkpoint set up on the main road into Nsawkaw, officers searched vehicles for hidden weapons.
ORDERLY VOTING
The election, which analysts say is one of the closest in Africa's history, has raised tension between the two main parties even though international observers have judged voting so far as generally orderly and transparent.
Each party has accused the other's supporters of violence and irregularities during Sunday's ballot, threatening to mar a poll seen as a chance to bolster Africa's battered democratic credentials after flawed and bloody elections in Zimbabwe and Kenya.
Kennedy said President John Kufuor, due to step down on January 7 after leading the gold-mining nation for the maximum two four-year terms, had cancelled plans to campaign in Tain for Akufo-Addo ahead of Friday's vote due to security concerns.
So far, opposition leader Mills of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), leads with 50.13 percent of votes, just ahead of Akufo-Addo's 49.87 percent.
Mills led in Tain in the inconclusive first round on December 7, meaning Akufo-Addo would require a landslide swing in voters' loyalties there to win the national vote.
Analysts say Mills is favourite to win Friday's ballot and the presidency after his NDC party overturned an NPP majority in parliament in a simultaneous legislative election.
But Akufo-Addo has refused to concede defeat. NPP officials applied on Thursday for a court order to prevent the Electoral Commission from publishing any more results, but the case was adjourned until next week, when the result will likely be known.
(Additional reporting by Christian Akorlie in Accra; Writing by Alistair Thomson; editing by Andrew Dobbie)