The National Democratic Congress (NDC) won most seats in the parliamentary elections, falling just short of an absolute majority, the Electoral Commission said Thursday.

The announcement leaves the country on a knife-edge as the NDC's presidential candidate John Atta-Mills goes into a run-off on December 28 only just behind Nana Akufo-Addo of the outgoing government New Patriotic Party (NPP).

The Electoral Commission said in results published on its website that the NDC had won 113 of the 230 seats in parliament, against 109 for the NPP. Seven seats were taken by smaller parties, while the result in the eighth was unavailable because of voting irregularities.

The NDC did well in the Volta region, home of former military coup leader turned elected civilian president Jerry Rawlings, taking 21 out of 22 seats, and around the capital.

The NPP won 34 out of 39 seats in southern Ashanti, home of outgoing President John Kufuor.

In the simultaneous presidential election on Sunday Akufo-Addo won 49.13 percent of the vote, against 47.92 percent for Atta-Mills. Trailing a very distant third was Papa Kwesi Nduom of the Convention People's Party (CPP) with 1.3 percent of the vote.

Local and international observers called Sunday's vote open, credible, peaceful and orderly, saying Ghana could provide a shining example to the rest of Africa after the crises that followed recent elections in Zimbabwe and Kenya. The former British colony was plagued by coups until the return to multi-party democracy in 1992.

Once economically stagnant, Ghana has enjoyed steady growth in recent years and the next government will be able to tap into oil revenues when the country starts in 2010 pumping crude from offshore wells.