The Ghanaian people, after voting massively in elections here, appeared set Friday to hand victory to the opposition, delivering an indictment of the 19-year reign of Jerry Rawlings.
In the first wide-open presidential race in their 43-year history, the main opposition candidate John Kufuor swept urban centers, scoring nearly 60 percent against Rawlings' handpicked successor, Vice President John Atta Mills, trailing with 38 percent.
Kufuor's New Patriotic Party (NPP) has wrested at least 20 seats in the 200-member parliament from the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), including those of the current interior and agriculture ministers, according to provisional results.
The NPP snapped up seats in the capital Accra that had been considered safe, and its margins of victory in its main stronghold, the heavily populated Ashanti region, have so far been huge.
The party's emphatic showing in the southern cities eclipsed the importance of the rural north, which had been a major battleground during the campaign because of Rawlings' populist appeal in the region.
For many the elections amounted to a referendum on the Rawlings era, during which one of Africa's most colorful leaders assumed cult status among many Ghanaians despite his sometimes ruthless rule.
Others blame Rawlings for the west African country's economic crisis on a legacy of corruption and financial mismanagement.
"Most people clearly wanted change," said analyst Audrey Gadzekpo.
"It was a vote against the ruling government more than a vote for the opposition."
The heavy turnout in the election clearly favored the opposition, whose campaign buzzword was "positive change".
Since the intellectual Atta Mills, the outgoing president's chosen successor whom people call "Prof", was thought to have little appeal with the grassroots, Rawlings campaigned heavily on his behalf in the countryside.
The tall, unassuming Kufuor, dubbed the "gentle giant" by his supporters, lost narrowly to Rawlings in 1996, giving the former coup-maker his second and final term of office under the constitution that restored multi-party politics to this west African state in 1992.
Rawlings, who previously led a military junta after taking power in 1981, must now step down, many say reluctantly, at the age of 53.
The elections, which will mark the first orderly transfer of power in post-independence Ghana if all goes according to plan, were generally peaceful, to the relief of many who feared manipulation, intimidation and violence.
A total of seven parties are in the running, including a wild card in the equation, the NDC breakaway New Reform Party (NRP) led by Goosie Tanoh, a former NDC stalwart who set up the party in 1998.
After being Africa's richest colony early in the last century, thanks to its gold and cocoa, Ghana is now struggling with high unemployment, rising prices and a dangerously weak currency.
Plunges in world prices for that same gold and cocoa, its top foreign exchange earners, have made matters worse.
Some 200 international observers are on hand to monitor the elections and their aftermath, as well as between 12,000 and 14,000 observers from local non-governmental organizations.
Final results may not be known before Sunday.
