NSAWKAW, Ghana (Reuters) - Voting opened on Friday in the final constituency in Ghana's presidential run-off despite a boycott by the ruling party, which is trailing narrowly in the election and tried to have the ballot postponed.
Electors began casting ballots shortly after the scheduled 7 a.m. British time start at a polling station in Nsawkaw, the main town of Tain district, which was unable to vote in last Sunday's nationwide run-off due to polling problems.
Foreign-trained lawyers John Atta Mills and Nana Akufo-Addo are vying to succeed President John Kufuor as the West African country prepares to start pumping oil in 2010. Sunday's run-off was so close that Tain's votes will decide the outcome.
Akufo-Addo's ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), which lost control of parliament in an election last month, had tried to have Friday's voting in Tain postponed for security reasons and said on Thursday it would not take part in the vote.
"I want to vote so that we can end this tussle," pensioner Kwadwo Adjei said as he waited to vote at a health centre in Nsawkaw.
Around 50 people queued patiently while electoral officials prepared voting materials, but there was no representative from Akufo-Addo's NPP.
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.
Hundreds of soldiers and armed police have been deployed in Tain to ensure calm during the election, but witnesses and observers said the situation appeared calm on Friday.
Voting is scheduled to close at 5 p.m. British time and counting will begin straightaway, although it is unclear when an official result will be declared.
Mills led in Tain in an inconclusive first round on December 7, meaning Akufo-Addo would require a landslide swing in voters' loyalties there to win the national vote.
(Reporting by Kwasi Kpodo, writing by Alistair Thomson; Editing by Jon Boyle/Keith Weir)
