The world's press is celebrating Ghana's peaceful transfer of power after an extremely close run-off election. Opposition candidate John Atta Mills defeated the ruling party's Nana Akufo-Addo by less than one half of a percentage point of the vote.

The New York Times wrote very positive stories on the election. In her main story on the result, Lydia Polgreen called the country's democracy "stable" and emphasized that Mills's victory was the second democratic transfer of power for Ghana.

Most international news organizations contrasted the good news with the steady flow of bad news from Africa which dominates Western front pages and homepages.

The weekly news magazine, the Economist, called the election a "fine example to the rest of Africa." The Christian Science Monitor, referring to the mayhem over Kenya's elections and the crisis in Zimbabwe, wrote that, "Ghana's orderly transition of power is a bright spot after a dismal year for democracy in Africa."

But as an editorial in London's Independent points out, Ghana is hardly exceptional: "Contrary to rumour, democracy is flourishing in much of Africa." Africa is much more democratic that it was 20 years ago, or even 10.

It is also easy to make too much of Ghana's election because it is only one country out of 53 on the continent, but the Independent strikes the right tone.