Ghana elections: Vote counting underway amid heavy security

Votes are being counted in Ghana following the presidential and parliamentary elections on Monday.

Despite the election being largely calm, heavy security is surveilling the count in the capital Accra's Jamestown neighborhood, where Ghanaians are already celebrating the victory of their candidate.

There are 12 candidates in the running but it is expected to be a two-horse race between incumbent president Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and his longtime rival and former president John Mahama of the National Democratic Congress party (NDC).

"We are supporting the New Patriotic Party, which is the NPP. Probably we’ve won already, so we have nothing much to say. Total knock out," said NPP supporter Awo 'Rasta.

But NDC supporter Yunis Day said "These people are NPP’s people. They are the disturbance. We are the NDC."

"They haven’t finished counting the ballot papers, but they are already making noise. Empty barrels make the most noise."

Ghana has ensured peaceful transfers of power on seven occasions its step towards multiparty democracy in 1992.

The two main parties have always accepted electoral outcomes and pursued any issues through the courts.

A few polling stations opened late and isolated cases of ballot tampering were reported by the electoral commission but there were no major incidents across the country's 38,000 polling stations.

Early election results are expected later on Tuesday.