Ghana election campaign gets into full swing

Ghana's parliament building

In this story: Key issues are prices, jobs Other candidates RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Graham Jones, CNN.com writer, in Accra

ACCRA, Ghana (CNN) -- Ghanaian newspapers have been scathing in the last week of the poor attendance in the country's parliament -- down to just a handful of members in a crucial debate setting the date for elections on December 7.

But the sparseness of MPs in the chamber is not political apathy. For the country's politicians have decamped to the countryside en masse for the presidential and parliamentary contest that sees the end of President Jerry Rawlings' 18 years in power and the handover to a new leader.

Northern Ghana this weekend saw another round of razzmatazz. The presidential sirens wailed, the bands played, and the key figures in one of Africa's most keenly-fought electoral battles sought feverishly to win wavering hearts and minds at another high-tempo rally.

Ruling party candidate Professor Johhn Atta Mills

Typically the charismatic President Rawlings, who came to power by a coup but whose constitutional term now ends, shrugs off his recent throat surgery in Switzerland and to a chorus of "JJ, JJ," takes to the stage playing the trumpet.

The clarion call is national unity, with "JJ" calling for a "massive" vote for his chosen -- if somewhat overshadowed -- National Democratic Congress (NDC) successor, Professor John Atta Mills.

Mills' main rival, lawyer John Agyekum Kufuor, 62, of the National Patriotic party (NPP) has also been in the poll battleground of northern Ghana in what is now seen as an electoral slugging match too close to call.

In the last presidential contest in 1996, Rawlings polled 57.8 percent of the vote to win in the first round from liberal democrat Kufuor on 38.7 percent.

With at least three percent of this a personal vote for "JJ" and more candidates -- seven -- this time, there is the chance the pre-contest favourite Professor Atta Mills, 56 -- three years older than Rawlings -- will face a run-off in a second round of voting set for December 27.

The Rawlingsist NDC is campaigning on a theme of continuity ("Spreading the Benefits of Development"), the opposition NPP on the need for a fresh start, ("Agenda for Positive Change").

Opposition challenger John Agyekum Kufuor

Both are targeting an improved private sector and increased overseas investment.

But the opposition faces a formidable government machine and warns of possible irregularities in voting that poses a keen challenge for the 5,000 electoral observers and the seven-man Electoral Commission.

An indication of their task was the identification of 1.5 million registered voters in excess of the 9.2 million indicated by census returns. Names of the dead and minors are currently being removed from the register.

"Professor Mills will be the winner because of his experience. He is the one with the right programme with the right ideas to take Ghana out of its present state," NDC member of parliament Modestus Ahiable told CNN.com.

The NPP says it has more radical plans for large-scale intensive farming and rural job creation. "Ghanaians are aching for a change," says Kufuor's spokesman Kwadwo Afari.

NDC politician Modestus Ahiable

"Professor Mills's coming is a change in itself," counters Ahiable.

Ghana's economy has slumped in the past year due a fall in the world price of its three main exports, cocoa, gold and timber, and the rise in oil prices.

Its plight eased after the IMF stepped in with a $30 million Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility, followed by $320 million aid from the World Bank and other global institutions. But the currency, the cedi, has dived as prices of household items have soared.

Mills, an London School of Economics-educated law professor, says he plans "national reconciliation" to create a "sense of national purpose for which all of us will unite."

At the weekend in Bawku he stressed the NDC's record in "achieving a lot for the country" through "infrastructural development never witnessed before in the history of the country."

With a third of the country in poverty the key issues are prices, jobs and living standards, particularly for the rural peasant communities who scratch a living from farming basic foodstuffs.

Opposition MP Kwadwo Agyei-Darko

"The average man cannot afford basic farming tools," NPP MP Kwadwo Agyei-Darko told CNN.com. "In the villages a basic tool like a cutlass is selling for 20,000 cedi" ($3.15).

The disproportionate wealth of some within the system is a backdrop, topped by the current scandal of the misappropriation of workers funds running into billions of cedis by members of the board of the public pension scheme, the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT).

"The major issues are corruption, mismanagement of the economy, the abuse of the rule of law and poverty," says the NPP's Afari. There is also an undercurrent of unease with incidents including a human excrement attack on a liberal opposition newspaper, the Crusading Guide.

"The government has lost direction and cannot govern well," says Kwame Obeng Asubmtyeng, a 33-year-old driver from Ashant-Betwai.

"After 20 years it is clear that their own interests come first. This is the opportune time for Ghanaians to think and vote wisely not just for a change of government but for a better life."

But others see continuity as their best hope.

"The current economic crisis is so complex that a completely new president and government will struggle for years before finding effective solutions," says Agatha Mensah, 30, a housewife from La, Accra.

"As vice-president in the present government, Professor Mills will be better equipped with experience to tackle the problems within a shorter time."

After confusion caused by the delay in the results from the 1996 poll, the Electoral Commission has ruled that 80 percent of results will be declared by December 8. If no candidate reaches 50 percent of the vote plus one, the leading two candidates go forward to the December 27 run-off.

Currently vying for third place as things stand with an estimated 5 to 10 percent of likely votes, are lawyer and industrialist Goosie Tanoh, 43, of the National Reform Party (NRP -- a ruling party breakaway) and African Studies academic, Professor George Hagan, 60, of the Nkrumaist Convention Peoples' Party (CPP).

The other three candidates are gynaecologist Dr Edward Mahama, 54, of the leftist People's National Convention (PNC); former Leeds University, England, students' president Dr Charles Wereko-Brobby, 47, of the United Ghana Movement (UGM), an NPP offshoot; and Dan Lartey, 74, of the Greater Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP), which is expected to finish last.

The feeling here is that if the election goes to a second ballot, the unexpected just might happen.

"We are just scared of violence by people taking the law into their own hands," says Afari.

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