Ghanaians voted today in a presidential runoff election that will determine who gets to spend the revenue from recent oil discoveries, Bloomberg reported.
The vote pits ruling New Patriotic Party candidate Nana Akufo-Addo, 64, against main opposition National Democratic Congress candidate John Atta Mills. Akufo-Addo won 49 percent of the first round vote held Dec. 7, while Mills, also 64, won 48 percent of the vote.
A crowd of a few dozen NDC supporters cheered as Mills cast his ballot at a polling station at the entrance of his gated community in an Accra suburb. "My chances are very good. I'm confident of winning," he told journalists after voting. Akufo- Addo cast his ballot in his hometown constituency in Ghana's Eastern region, about 90 minutes from Accra.
The December vote, which coincided with parliamentary elections, was lauded by observer groups as free from the widespread unrest seen after elections in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Campaigning for the runoff has been less amicable, with both sides making vitriolic statements, ethnic slurs and threats of violence, Sebastian Spio-Garbrah, Middle East and Africa analyst at the New York-based Eurasia Group, said in a note to clients.
"The monitoring is going to be smooth; it's going to be properly done and nobody is going to be allowed to vote twice," said Mills. "We don't want any rigging and we don't want any cheating."
Jendayi Frazer, the top U.S. envoy to Africa, urged both sides to abide by the outcome of the voting. The election is "viewed, whether fairly or not, as a test, almost a referendum, on democracy throughout Africa," she said.