ACCRA, Ghana (AP) – President John Kufuor, whose 2000 election marked the first peaceful transfer of power in the thriving West African democracy of Ghana, won re-election in a race that drew more than 8 out of every 10 voters.

Kufuor, an Oxford-educated lawyer who Ghanaians affectionately call “the Gentle Giant,” received 52.75 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s election with results from 225 of 230 legislative districts tallied, Election Commission Chairman Kwadwo Afari-Gyan said late Thursday.

John Atta Mills, the strongest of three challengers, received 44.32 percent of the vote, Afari-Gyan said.

While results from five districts were still out, they would not change the outcome, the election chairman said.

Turnout among the roughly 10 million eligible voters was a staggering 83.2 percent in a nation that prides itself on leading the way for a new generation of maturing African democracies.

“The thumb has worked,” one online editorial declared after the vote. Posters across Ghana had urged voters to use “the power of the thumb,” stamping ink-doused thumbs to ballot papers to peacefully choose their next leader.

Ghana voters held radios to ears throughout the vote count. When the declaration of the winner came, Kufuor spokesman Kwabena Agyepong said he was “invigorated by this decision.”

“And he will work hard to bring prosperity to Ghana,” the spokesman said.

Kufuor, first elected in 2000, rode high on his popularity for maintaining peace and democratic gains and for nudging along the economy of the world’s No. 2 cocoa producer and one of the leading gold producers.

West African election observers said earlier Thursday the vote had been “transparent and in good order.”

“The elections were orderly and peacefully conducted, and every member of our delegation would like to congratulate the people of Ghana,” Desomond Luke, chairman of the 19-member team from the Economic Community of West African States, told reporters in the capital, Accra.

Kufuor’s party, the New Patriotic Party, also was poised to take a majority of the 230 seats in parliament.

Kufuor celebrated his 65th birthday Wednesday amid a flurry of victory predictions.

He first defeated Mills in 2000, in a race that marked the first democratic transfer of power in Ghana, a former British colony that in 1957 became the first holding in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence.

Mills was the chosen candidate of Jerry Rawlings, a charismatic former flight lieutenant who seized power in a 1981 coup, capping more than a decade of rule by military big men who drove Ghana’s economy into the ground.

Rawlings allowed, and won, fair elections in 1992 and 1996, beating Kufuor in the latter race.

In a region where coups and political instability still are relatively common, radio DJs, preachers and government officials urged Ghana’s 20 million people to take the results of this week’s race calmly.

AP-ES-12-09-04 1914EST

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