Africa Ghana elections: Dec 28 second round, NPP Akufor-Addo, NDC J. Atta Mills, nobody reached 50%

Ghana's presidential election must be decided in a second-round vote, the electoral commission has announced.

Governing party candidate Nana Akufo-Addo won 49.13% of the vote, against 47.92% for his rival, John Atta Mills, the commission said.

But neither reached the 50% threshold needed for an outright win and a run-off will be held on 28 December.

Local and international observers have praised Ghana for setting a good example on how to conduct an election.

A run-off will be held on December 28 if neither candidate gets more than 50 percent of the votes.

The candidate of Ghana's ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo, has pulled ahead in the count from Sunday's presidential election.

He holds slightly more than 49% of the vote with more than half of the precincts in Ghana tabulated but a run-off may still be held. John Atta Mills of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) trails him by slightly more than 2%.

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Ghanaians walked the streets holding radios to their ears and congregated next to TV sets Monday as early results in one of Africa's few stable democracies showed the opposition leading by a sliver.

With only a quarter of the precincts counted, there is plenty of room for change. But early results showed opposition candidate John Atta Mills leading the ruling party's Nana Akufo-Addo by some 10,000 votes.

The opposition's base is the urban poor concentrated in the capital, who live in areas that have largely been left untouched by Ghana's stunning economic growth. Results are expected to begin trickling in from the countryside, where the ruling party has traditionally led.

According to a statement released by the country's Electoral Commission, Atta Mills of the National Democratic Congress, or NDC, has 48.98 percent of the vote with 63 out of 230 precincts reporting.

Akufo-Addo, whose New Patriotic Party, or NPP, has been in power for the past eight years, is close behind with 48.55 percent of the vote.

In a year that has seen disputed elections in both Kenya and Zimbabwe, voters here are keenly aware that they are viewed as a role model for the rest of the continent.

"I am proud that my country is a democracy," said Salomey Tackie, who along with several hundred neighbors waited for results outside her polling station late Sunday in one of the capital's crowded shantytowns.

``The voting was on the whole peaceful and orderly, and Ghanaians showed extraordinary patience in exercising their right to vote,'' said Baroness Valerie Amos, head of the Commonwealth's observer group in a statement e-mailed late yesterday after polls closed.

Oil Discovery

Christian Owusu-pare, a spokesman for the country's electoral commission, didn't answer calls made to his mobile phone. President John Kufuor, 69, is stepping down after leading the west African nation of 20 million for two consecutive terms.

Neither of the two main candidates is likely to achieve the 50 percent needed to avoid a second round of voting, according to an opinion poll published on Dec. 4 by the Daily Dispatch, an Accra-based newspaper

The Ghana 2008 Presidential/Parliamentary elections has been over since about 12 hours ago and I find it interesting that many of the leading Western media outlets have not made a mention of Ghana 2008 Elections. Perhaps, Ghana does not exist on their radar screen. Ghana, like the rest of black Africa will only pop-up on their monitoring screens when over 1,000 people have butchered themselves or over 300,000 people are dying of starvation, or over 500,000 people are displaced by a civil war.

Elections 2008 : Presidential Results

PIC CANDIDATE PARTY VOTES %

	Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo	NPP	1.762,537	49,47
	Dr. Edward Nasigri Mahama	PNC	23,346	0.66
	Prof. John Evans Atta Mills	NDC	1.714,655	48.13
	Mr Emmanuel Ansah-Antwi	DFP	8,938	0.25
	Thomas Nuako Ward-Brew	DPP	2,520	0.07
	Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom	CPP	42,989	1.21
	Kwabena Adjei	RDP	1,763	0.05
	Kwasi Amoafo-Yeboah	INDE	5,739	0.16