Kufor set to become Ghana President

By M.S. Prabhakara

ACCRA (GHANA), DEC. 10. Mr. John Agyekum Kufor, President of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and its candidate in the presidential poll, is poised to take over as the new President of Ghana. He lost to the President, Mr. Jerry John Rawlings, in the December 1996 presidential race.

Though the Electoral Commission is yet to certify all the results, unofficial results indicate that Mr. Kufor has taken an unassailable lead over his main opponent, Prof. John Atta Mills of the ruling National Democratic Congress. Mr. Kufor himself has claimed victory, attributing it to God and the people of Ghana, and, more significantly, that a future NPP government would not engage in vindictiveness.

The assurance may turn out to be rather less reassuring than it sounds since it only underlines the persistence of memories of old wounds and divisions; and of the perceived excesses of the two-stage revolution initiated by Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings on June 4, 1979 and December 31, 1981.

Rather more materially, Mr. Rawlings said in a radio interview yesterday that on the base of the current trends, Mr. Kufor could probably be the next President. However, NDC supporters still pin their hopes on the outcome in its traditional strongholds in the Volta region and regions in the north, though with increasingly less conviction.

The winning candidate has to secure 950 per cent plus one of the valid votes cast in the poll. The five other candidates in the fray putting a miserable show, the expected run-off is now not a likely scenario.

With about two thirds of the votes counted in the presidential polls, Mr. Kufor is still leading, securing more than the 50 per cent of the votes counted. The outcome in the Parliamentary polls, as evident in the results announced till now, is even more decisive. Apart from retaining and increasing its support in its traditional strongholds like the Ashanti Region where the NPP has won 30 of the 32 seats for which polls were held (polling in one constituency is to be held later), the NPP has made massive inroads in traditionally NDC areas.

In Brong-Ahafo Region, for instance, where in 1999 the NPP won only four of the 21 seats, it has already won seven seats, with five of them wrested from NDC. The NPP has also made gains in the Greater Accra Region, wresting four seats from the NDC.

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