Ghanaian citizens went to the polls on the 7th of December 2004 to elect a new president and members of parliament. Ghana operate a unicameral Legislature composed of 275 Members. This year's general elections are the ninth in the series of national elections that have held in Ghana since 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 2012, 2016, 2020 and 2024. There were 12 presidential aspirants on the ballot but the contest was essentially between the two dominant political parties that have alternated power in the country in the last thirty-two years.
Mahamudu Bawumia, 61, was the candidate of the governing party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and is also the incumbent vice president to Nana Akufo-Addo who is leaving office after two terms. Mahamudu Bawumia from the northern region is the first Muslim to win the presidential nomination of a major political party in Ghana. He is also the first NPP presidential candidate to come from outside the dominant Twi-Akan ethno-linguistic group. He therefore nominated an Asante (Akan) and Christian, Matthew Opoku Prempeh as running mate for ethno-regional and religious balance.
John Dramani Mahama, 65, and president-elect contested under the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and was doing that for the fourth consecutive time. John Mahama was former vice president to President John Atta Mills who died in office. Mahama finished the reminder of his term and thereafter contested and won in 2012 defeating Nana Akufo-Addo. He lost his re-election bid in 2016 and 2020 to the outgoing president Akufo-Addo. He is from the northern region like the NPP candidate and nominated a former minister of Education, Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang as running mate.
According to the International Foundation for Electoral Systems almost nineteen million voters are registered for the election and over ten million of that number or 54 percent are youth between the ages of 18 and 35years. Little wonder parties deployed most of their campaign messaging via social media platforms to reach this segment of the population. I have also followed some Ghanaian account on X, former twitter just to get a sense of the electioneering campaign and voting process.
The main campaign issue in this year's election revolved around the state of the Ghanaian economy which is plagued by mounting debts leading to the country defaulting in debt servicing and an IMF bailout, high inflation, chronic youth unemployment and environmental concerns associated with illegal gold mining known in local parlance as 'galamsey'. The activities of illegal miners have raised environmental concerns and polluted major rivers that serve as sources of drinking water to local communities and have sparks protests by groups on the eve of the election. The election was framed by the main opposition party as a referendum on the eight years of the NPP administration and according to them cast a huge doubt on the capacity of the NPP candidate who is an oxford trained economist, a former deputy governor of the central bank and have presided over the economic council of the Akufo-Addo administration for 8years.
Elections in Ghana are often closely fought contest but largely peaceful leading to several orderly transfer of power between political parties. This has over the years earned the country a reputation as pillar of democracy in a sub-region referred to as a "coup belt" of the continent as a result of the resurgence of military rule in Mali, Burkina-Faso, Guinea and Niger Republic.
As regards the conduct and outcome of the election, the exercise witnessed pockets of violence with two reported fatalities, there were also allegations of vote trading in some voting centres. The outcome of the election shows the opposition party winning with a landslide, taking both the presidency and a dominant majority in the parliament. Figures shows John Mahama winning with a margin of 56.55% against 41.61% of the governing party candidate and a total voter turn out of 60.9%. Perhaps the brightest spot from the Ghana 2024 election was the phone call from Mahamadu Bawumia the NPP candidate to John Mahama conceding defeat and congratulating him on his victory, he followed it up with press conference accepting that his party has lost the election long before the final vote tally by the electoral commission. This gesture helped to calm tension that was building and is reminiscent of what Goodluck Jonathan did in the 2015 general election in Nigeria.
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·Kelvin Ashindorbe, Peace and Development Studies Programme, Institute of Communication and General Studies, Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, Ogun State
