Ghana's Tain district on Friday held the presidential run-off as planned despite a demand from the ruling New Patriotic Party to postpone it, according to local news .

The polls started at 0700 GMT and will close at 1700 GMT in the Tain district which failed to hold the presidential run-off on Dec. 28, 2008 due to problems with the organization of the election.

Counting will start immediately after the vote in Tain, which will decide the winner of the presidential run-off.

Ballots have been counted from the 229 other constituencies, showing that the candidate from the opposition party slightly leads in the presidential run-off.

The second round race was between Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and John Evans Atta Mills of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Chairman of the Electoral Commission Kwadwo Afari Gyan announced on Dec. 10, 2008 that neither Akufo-Addo nor Mills obtained the required 50 percent of votes needed for an outright win in the first round which was held on Dec. 7, 2008.

In the first round of election, Akufo-Addo secured 4,159,439 votes, or 49.13 percent of the total valid counts, while Mills gained 4,056,634 votes, or 47.92 percent.

Ghana recorded a nationwide voter population of 12,472,758 for the 2008 elections and turnout was 69.52 percent in the first round.

(Xinhua News Agency January 2, 2009)