Our analysis of the first 76 constituencies officially declared by the Ghana election commission shows an average swing to the opposition NDC of 6.36% compared to the 2004 election. If that average swing is projected across the remaining constituencies, the Presidential election result would be:

Nana Akuffo Addo NPP 49.27%

John Atta Mills NDC 47.82%

The other parties would have 2.88% between them. No candidate having obtained an overall majority, the two leading candidates would enter a second round.

Remember this is a projection based on swing. In terms of actual votes cast, Nana Akuffo Addo currently has 50.04%. But the remaining constituencies on balance have historically very slightly favoured the NDC taken together.

To show how our projection has moved as more results have come in:

After 55 constituencies declared projection was:

Mills 48.99%

Akuffo Addo 48.3%

After 66 constitutencies declared

Mills 48.38%

Akuffo Addo 48.71%

After 76 constituencies declared

Mills 47.82%

Akuffo Addo 49.27%

The narrowness of range of movement in the projection gives us confidence in its forecasting ability, and mathematically the range of movement should now diminish barring results well out of line with what has gone before.

A word of caution. This election is different to those of 2000 and 2004, in which there were fairly uniform swings to the NPP across the country. This election has wild regional variation in the rate of swing, with the NDC doing spectacularly well in some of the coastal areas of Central and Western regions. But to win outright Mills needs an overll swing of 10.3% – a very hard task. Paradoxically it is made harder because the NDC has historically done so well in Volta Region there is no room for it to pick up many more votes there, while the NPP is suffering a swing of some 6% against it in its strongholds – well below what Mills needs to win. Meanwhile the NPP has held its own well in the North.

But the NDC is exceeding the 10% target in some parts of Greater Accra, and the large number of constituencies there yet to declare could benefit Mills. This is an extremely exciting election.

It is also being conducted in a fair and orderly manner with a lot of voter enthusiasm. Yet it is being widely ignored in the Western media, which only wants to carry bad news about Africa.

Joy FM is the vest source for Ghana election watchers. Unfortunately they have not yet given many percentages for the current elections, so we are working these and the swings out on my overworked calculator.

http://elections.myjoyonline.com/elections/2008/

STOP PRESS projection after 92 constituencies with average swing of 5.9% to NDC:

Nana Akuffo Addo 49.50

John Atta Mills 47.59

I am now prepared to go with that as a firm prediction.