Accra – The battle of the two Johns for the presidency of the west African state of Ghana opened on Tuesday with an ambitious campaign to register 10 million voters ahead of presidential and parliamentary polls set for December.
Over the next two weeks, about 84 000 registration officials will criss-cross the country to photograph and register eligible voters over the age of 18, hoping to avoid vote fraud similar to that which plagued the 2000 elections that sent John Kufuor to the presidency.
An estimated one million “ghost voters” bloated the rolls in the last election campaign, political analyst Kwamena Kum said, making the need for a new voter registration system crucial to ensure transparency.
Kufuor faced off against arch-nemesis John Evans Atta-Mills in the 2000 campaign and won in a second round after neither of them managed to obtain the requisite 50% plus one of valid votes cast.
Source: GhanaWeb
