Ghana’s opposition leader John Mahama on Monday officially won the country’s election, easily defeating the ruling party candidate after voters punished the government’s economic management and the high costs of living.
Mahama won 56 per cent of the votes in Saturday’s presidential ballot, compared to the ruling party candidate and Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia who secured 41 per cent, the electoral commission said, announcing official results.
The comeback for former president Mahama ends eight years in power for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) under President Nana Akufo-Addo, whose last term was marked by Ghana’s worst economic turmoil in years, an IMF bailout and a debt default.
“I have the singular honour… to declare his excellency John Dramani Mahama as the winner”, Electoral Commission Chairperson Jean Mensa said, announcing the results.
Vice President Bawumia, a former central banker, had already quickly conceded defeat on Sunday, acknowledging Ghanaians wanted change after the government failed to shake off widespread frustration.
Bawumia also said the Mahama’s National Democratic Congress (NDC) party had also won the parliamentary vote in Saturday’s election. Official results for the parliament are still being tallied.
Mahama, 66, previously failed twice to secure the presidency, but in Saturday’s election he managed to tap into expectations of change among Ghanaians.
He has promised to “reset” Ghana, usher in economic revival and renegotiate parts of the country’s $3 billion IMF accord.
With a history of democratic stability, Ghana’s two major parties, the NPP and NDC, have alternated in power equally since the return to multi-party politics in 1992.
But Ghana’s economic woes dominated the 2024 election, after the continent’s top gold producer and world’s second cacao exporter went through a debt crisis, the default and currency devaluation.
Turnout on Saturday was 60.9 per cent, a slide in participation compared with 79 per cent in the 2020 election, results showed.
With a slogan “Break the 8” — a reference to two, four-year terms in power — Bawumia had sought to take the NPP to an unprecedented third mandate. But he struggled to break from criticism of Akufo-Addo’s economic record.
While inflation slowed from more than 50 per cent to around 23 per cent, and other indicators stabilised, economic concerns were still a clear election issue for most Ghanaians.
That frustration opened the way for a comeback from Mahama, who first came to the presidency in 2012 when he was serving as vice president and then President John Atta Mills died in office.
During campaigning, the former president also faced criticism from those who remember his government’s own financial tribulations and especially the massive power blackouts that marred his time in office.
