The Electoral Fee of Ghana was as a result of announce the official outcomes of Saturday’s presidential elections by Tuesday. However by Sunday morning, Mahamudu Bawumia, the nation’s vice chairman and flag-bearer of the ruling New Patriotic Social gathering (NPP) and his marketing campaign workforce had seen sufficient to surrender.
“The info from our personal inside collation of the outcomes signifies that … John Mahama has gained the presidential election decisively,” he mentioned at a press convention after calling his rival to concede. By Monday, the fee confirmed the end result: the previous president of the Nationwide Democratic Congress (NDC) had certainly gained with 56% of the vote to Bawumia’s 41%.
The NPP’s defeat – by one of many largest margins in latest historical past – was seen as a referendum on the outgoing authorities’s efficiency. Commentators surmised that Ghanaians had been sufficiently displeased by the state of affairs to re-elect Mahama, whom they’d kicked out unceremoniously in 2016 – the primary time an incumbent was unseated.
The previous president’s comeback on his third try additionally made him the primary particular person within the west African state to win two non-consecutive phrases.
However the election this time additionally adopted a sample voters have studiously saved in place for the reason that return to multiparty democracy in 1992: each authorities that served two four-year phrases has been changed by the opposition.
Financial hardship was a significant factor: at one level, inflation was as excessive as 50% and the cedi plummeted to historic lows whereas the variety of taxes elevated. A banking sector purge that was hailed by economists however led to 1000’s of job losses additionally angered voters, as did a bloated authorities wherein a number of family of the president and ruling social gathering members served.
Since Ghana’s independence in 1957, it has obtained bailouts from the Worldwide Financial Fund 17 instances, based on Theophilus Acheampong, an economist and affiliate lecturer on the College of Aberdeen.
So a certain signal that the federal government was on its manner out was its dealing with of its talks with the IMF for a three-year, $3bn rescue package deal because the nation defaulted on overseas debt obligations, mentioned the political analyst Bernard Tutu Boahen.
“It was preceded by the federal government not telling the reality to Ghanaians within the sense that when the president mentioned the federal government was not going to embark on any IMF journey, the finance minister got here to make an announcement that they’ve taken the choice to go,” he mentioned.
That price the federal government quite a lot of goodwill. Pensioners demonstrated in a collection of protests within the capital in 2023 about delayed advantages ensuing from a controversial debt swap programme launched as a part of circumstances for accessing the IMF facility.
All of this largely contributed to apathy within the elections, consultants say.
The NPP, seen to be overwhelmingly populated and supported by Akans, Ghana’s largest ethnic group, put ahead Bawumia, a candidate from the north – the identical area as the previous president – this time. However his operating mate was a prince from the Ashanti area, the primary base of the Akans, to curry their assist.
“Up to now two elections, Ghana’s election turnout charges have exceeded 70%,” Boahen mentioned. “The latest one which was carried out in 2020 had a turnout fee of about 79%, however this one fell to 60.9%. Now, within the stronghold of the ruling NPP which is Ashanti area, apathy was so excessive that the turnout fee was round 35%.”
Past that, witnesses and consultants say the NDC had realized from its earlier defeats and enacted a lot of methods to win the election. One in all them was the mobilisation of its supporters to be vigilant and monitor the method to keep away from any tampering with ballots.
“We have now put in place superior counter-rigging methods and are monitoring each official of the electoral fee and their collaborators,” an NDC spokesperson, Abass Nurudeen, mentioned on the eve of the polls.
On the weekend, NDC supporters celebrated throughout the nation with their social gathering’s inexperienced, white and crimson colors. However many warn that for Mahama – who can legally serve solely a four-year time period – the honeymoon might be brief as he tries to repair the economic system and eclipse the blotched legacy of his first time period.
To succeed he should “rein in political apparatchiks who could wish to exploit the return to energy for his or her egocentric materials ends,” mentioned Lloyd Adu Amoah, a political science lecturer on the College of Ghana. “If this second shot on the presidency can be squandered, Mahama will certainly have nobody in charge however himself.”
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