New Year’s day celebration on low key (Back Page)

THE usual merry-making associated with New Year’s Day was absent in many parts of Accra yesterday.
The atmosphere in the metropolis was quiet and uncertain, as residents remained apprehensive as a result of the prevailing political stalemate.
Reports from other parts of the country gave a similar picture and attributed the situation to politics.
A report by the Carter Centre indicated that the 2008 elections, Ghana's fifth since multi-party democracy was restored in 1992, were widely seen as an opportunity to further advance democratic consolidation.
Expectations for the elections, according to the report, had been extremely high, both inside and outside Ghana.
“The country has served as an anchor in the West African region, which has often been marred by areas of instability and civil war. For this reason, a successful election is critically important to both Ghana and the region as a whole,” it stated.
But, unfortunately, there seem to be signs to indicate that things may not go the way Ghanaians and the rest of the world expected.
There have been reports of election related violence in some parts of the country, especially in the Ashanti Region, the stronghold of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), and the Volta Region, the stronghold of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Last Tuesday, supporters of the NDC converged on the Electoral Commission (EC) to demonstrate against what they termed as delays in declaring the winner of the presidential run-off between their candidate, Professor J.E.A. Mills, and the candidate of the NPP, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
The following day, hundreds of NPP supporters also held a similar demonstration at the EC to protest against the results released by the commission, which put the NDC flag bearer in the lead.
This year’s elections have been highly competitive, as Prof Mills, who had previously run against and lost to Mr J.A. Kufuor in 2000 and 2004, took a narrow lead of 50.13 per cent of the votes, as against Nana Akufo-Addo’s 49.87 per cent in the run-off.
Earlier, six smaller parties had fielded candidates who also contested the presidency, including Paa Kwesi Nduom of the Convention People's Party (CPP) and Dr Edward Mahama of the People's National Convention (PNC).
After the nation failed to get a clear winner in the December 7, 2008 election, December 28, 2008 was chosen for a run-off which again could not determine a winner.
Although Prof Mills came first with 4,501,466 votes, as against Nana Akufo-Addo’s 4,478,411, Dr Afari-Gyan declined to name a winner as a result of the outstanding election in the Tain Constituency where voting in the run-off could not be held in all the 144 polling stations because of a pending protest.
As the nation awaits the results from the Tain Constituency today, everybody seems to be on edge.