By Kwasi Kpodo
NSAWKAW, Ghana (Reuters) - Voting went ahead 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.
John Atta Mills, from the opposition, and the ruling party's Nana Akufo-Addo, are vying to succeed outgoing President John Kufuor as the West African country prepares to start producing crude oil in 2010. Both candidates are foreign-trained lawyers.
Sunday's run-off was so close that Tain's 53,000 electors will decide the outcome, raising tensions over a poll seen as a chance to bolster Africa's battered democratic credentials after flawed and bloody elections in Zimbabwe and Kenya.
"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, the main town of Tain district. Tain was unable to vote in last Sunday's nationwide run-off due to polling problems.
Opposition leader Mills of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), leads with 50.13 percent of votes, ahead of Akufo-Addo, of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), on 49.87 percent.
Barely 23,000 votes separate the two candidates.
Mills is favourite to win Friday's ballot, in a cocoa growing region, and to take the presidency after his NDC overturned the ruling NPP's majority in parliament in a simultaneous legislative election on December 7.
Mills led in Tain then, so Akufo-Addo would require a huge swing in voters' loyalties there to win the national vote.
"All the signs are that Tain will be taken by the NDC," said Rolake Akinola, analyst at consultancy Control Risks in London.
Each party accuses the other's supporters of violence and irregularities in Sunday's ballot, though international and local monitors said voting was generally free and orderly.
An Electoral Commission official in nearby Ashanti Region, an NPP stronghold, said he and his family had received death threats after announcing results this week, state broadcaster Ghana Broadcasting Corporation radio reported on Friday.
CHALLENGE RAISES STAKES
Despite the possibility of a protracted legal dispute over the election, Kufuor said it was important to maintain the timetable for him to hand over the presidency on January 7.
"I therefore urge all stakeholders to yield to the authority of the electoral commissioner when he declares the result. Any outstanding issue may be settled later by due process," Kufuor said in a statement.
Under Kufuor's rule, Ghana has attracted growing foreign investment. As well as being the world's No. 2 cocoa producer, it is Africa's second biggest gold producer.
The NPP applied on Thursday for a court order to prevent the Electoral Commission publishing more results. But the case was adjourned until next week, when the result will likely be known.
The NPP, which continues to govern until Kufuor steps down, had also tried to have voting in Tain postponed for security reasons and said on Thursday it would not take part in the vote.
"It significantly raises the stakes, it significantly raises tensions ... (but) I'm not sure Ghana would necessarily descend into chaos or major instability. There is no historical precedent for that," Control Risks' Akinola said from London.
As voting began across Tain, representatives of the NDC turned up at polling stations but those of the Akufo-Addo's NPP did not. Hundreds of soldiers and police have been deployed to ensure calm, searching vehicles entering Nsawkaw for weapons.
Voting at the 100 or so polling stations is scheduled to close at 5 p.m. British time and counting will begin straight away. It is unclear when an official result will be declared.
