Winner of Ghana election faces full in-tray and polarity

This time round, choosing a new president and 276 legislators will be a big test for the electorate, just as it is for the candidates.

John Mahama, who twice lost a political contest and got respect for conceding as an incumbent, is back. He has vowed to accept results only if “free and fair.”

That conditionality is not unique to Mahama, especially in African political contests. Often, whether an election is free or fair depends on whether someone wins or loses.

The general election will be the ninth since the 35 million people of the gold-rich West African nation returned to democratic governance in January 1993.

Former President of Botswana, Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi, will lead a team of Commonwealth election observers to Ghana, where the outgoing President Nana Akufo-Addo sought peaceful and transparency conduct.

Masisi is a curious choice, as he just lost a presidential election this month, and quickly moved on after conceding defeat.

Outgoing Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland KC composed a 16-member team on November 21, after receiving an invitation to do so from the Electoral Commission of Ghana.

Some 12 candidates are listed for the presidential race which, in reality, is between the candidates of the country’s two rival parties, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

The election comes at a time of deepening polarisation along ethnic and religious lines and a harsh economic environment blamed on crippling national debt, spiralling inflation and high unemployment, issues that could determine the outcome of the election.

President Akufo-Addo of the NPP is term-limited. His party, now led by Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia, is campaigning to win an unprecedented third term, while the NDC, led by former president Mahama, is determined to return to power and avoid becoming the first party to stay in opposition in three elections in a row.

President Akufo-Addo, who completes his mandatory two terms by January 7, 2025, has promised to leave office through peaceful and credible general election.

“I came (into office) as a result of a peaceful and credible election, and I want to go out through the same process, to entrench the democratic tradition in Ghana,” he told the Ecowas Election Observation Mission led by former Nigerian vice-president Mohammed Namadi Sambo in Accra on December 3.

President Akufo-Addo said that Ecowas, the West African bloc, as a community, has been facing “challenges and negative developments,” including violent extremism and military incursions in politics, especially the decision of three-member states -- Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger -- to quit the bloc.

“The responsibility is on us to respond to these challenges with the conduct of free, fair and credible elections,” he said.

The Ecowas delegation includes Deputy Head of Mission Baboucarr Blaise Jagne, Gambia’s former Foreign minister Abdel-Fatau Musah, Ecowas Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, who is leading an Electoral Technical Support Team and Mohamed Lawan Gana, Ecowas Resident Representative in Ghana.

More observers

Prof Anselem Ajakaye, a public affairs analyst in Abuja, said Ghana’s past elections have given it a reputation of fairness, opening more observers to come see how it runs.

But it wasn’t always this way.

He saw the 1992 election that heralded Ghana’s current Fourth Republic, which NPP boycotted the December parliamentary elections after rejecting the results of the preceding November presidential election, won by the NDC’s Jerry John Rawlings.

Of the past eight general elections, three — 2000, 2008, 2016 — produced a party turnover in government and two (2012, 2020), gave rise to a presidential election petitions before the Supreme Court, which were settled, in each case, in favour of the originally declared winner.

But, in all instances, transfer of power was peaceful and orderly.

The candidate of NPP for the 2024 presidential elections is Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, 61, the current Vice President, was a deputy governor of the central bank.

Bawumia was considered a political outsider when he was first picked by Akufo-Addo as his running mate on the NPP ticket in the 2008 elections.

After losing both the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections to the NDC, the pair eventually won the 2016 elections and was re-elected in 2020.

The economist has played the role of head of the Akufo-Addo administration’s economic management team since 2017—a role conventionally reserved for Ghana’s vice-presidents.

Read: Ghana opposition rallies over economic crisis

He emerged as the party’s 2024 presidential candidate after a divisive internal primary, which ended with one of the main contestants, former trade minister Alan Kyerematen, resigning from the party and launching an independent bid for the presidency.

Bawumia, the first Muslim to be selected as the presidential candidate of a major political party in Ghana, is also the first NPP presidential candidate to come from outside the party’s Twi-Akan ethno-linguistic base.

Bawumia has chosen Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, 56, a Christian, as his running mate. Prior to his selection as vice-presidential candidate, Prempeh was minister in the Akufo-Addo administration and MP for one of the NPP's strongholds in Kumasi, the party's traditional home.

For the fourth time in a row, the NDC's presidential candidate is Mahama, 65. He served as vice-president between 2009 and 2012.

Mahama served the remainder of the uncompleted term of John Atta Mills, who died in office in July 2012. He was subsequently elected to a four-year term as president in 2013, after defeating Akufo-Addo (NPP) in their first direct face-off.

Mahama lost his bid for re-election to Akufo-Addo in 2016, becoming the only Ghanaian president thus far to suffer defeat after one term in office. He contested and lost again to Akufo-Addo in 2020.

His retention by the NDC as its presidential candidate in this year’s election sets up the first presidential contest in which both candidates of the two major parties are from the historically marginalised North.

For the second time, Mahama has chosen as his running mate the retired academic and his former minister for education, Prof Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, 72.

In a significant step towards enhancing the transparency of the electoral process, citizen-driven digital platform iCollate has been launched to encourage citizens’ participation in polling stations results collation.

The app comes at a critical moment in Ghana’s democratic journey, offering citizens a transparent and inclusive tool to hold the electoral process accountable.

iCollate is designed to empower Ghanaians living everywhere to actively participate in monitoring and collating results to enhance the integrity of the electoral process.

Meanwhile, a founding member of NPP, Dr Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe, has called on the Electoral Commission and stakeholders to uphold and protect Ghana’s democratic peace.

In a statement on December 3, Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe appealed to prominent national figures to fulfil their obligations in ensuring stability and fairness during this critical period.

“You are not the first to hold this esteemed office, and you will not be the last. The legacy of this institution has always been one of fairness, transparency, and impartiality,” he said.