Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Ghana gives military leader power at polls Date: Sat, 7 Nov 92 19:23:58 EST Message-ID: \SE A;WORLD \SS (WS) \HD Ghana gives military leader power at polls \BY Gill Tudor \CR REUTERS NEWS AGENCY \DT ACCRA, Ghana ACCRA, Ghana - Ghana's leader, Jerry Rawlings, who seized power twice through the barrel of a gun, won it through the ballot box when official election returns yesterday gave him 58.5 percent of the vote. With only one local result still to be announced, the 45-year-old former air force officer clinched victory in a single round of voting in the West African country's first free elections in 13 years. His top rival, conservative history professor Albert Adu Boahen, got 30.2 percent of the 4 million votes cast Tuesday, a turnout of about 49 percent. The other three candidates had less than 7 percent each. Ghana's electoral commission was expected to declare Mr. Rawlings the winner soon after the final result comes through. Opposition parties have claimed massive electoral fraud, and a dusk-to-dawn curfew was declared in Ghana's second city of Kumasi Wednesday after rioting by supporters of Mr. Boahen's New Patriotic Party. But international observers have endorsed the polls as fair despite organizational problems. "We're not expecting any great civil unrest," a Western diplomat said. "After the initial demonstrations, the opposition seems to be settling down to challenge the result through legal channels." Most political analysts say Mr. Rawlings, a fiery populist who resigned from the air force only a few weeks ago to run as a civilian, had no need to rig the election. They say he has genuine support, chiefly among rural voters who have received water, roads and electricity under his grass-roots development policies. Critics accuse his National Democratic Congress - effectively the government party - of intimidating opponents and misusing state funds and power to sway voters long before they cast their ballots. He was slow to bow to demands for multiparty rule and has kept a very tight lid on dissent since he seized power for the second time in 1981. Opponents say his human rights record, which includes the execution of three former presidents in what he termed "housecleaning," is worse than that of any other Ghanaian leader. Amnesty International released a blistering report last year accusing him of systematically locking up hundreds of opponents. The 1983 murder of three high court judges, in which soldiers were implicated, shocked Ghana deeply. But he has a reputation for honesty and plain talk that has won him wide if grudging respect at home and abroad. "Sure, he's a dictator, but he's what the country needed," a young, middle-class Ghanaian said. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM