By Mohammed Momoh*
Ghana’s outgoing Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), promptly conceded defeat in Saturday’s presidential election and congratulated former president John Mahama.
The decision meant that Ghana maintained its reputation as a country where election losers hardly get sore. They just plot to return in the future.
“The people of Ghana have spoken, the people have voted for change at this time and we respect it with all humility,” Mr Bawumia said.
Even before the official results came in, Mr Bawumia, who would have become Ghana’s first Muslim president if he had won, said his party was also conceding defeat in the parliamentary majority.
“It is important that the world investor community continues to believe in the peaceful and democratic character of Ghana,” Bawumia added.
The election was the culmination of years of planning by Mahama’s National Democratic Congress (NDC), that was also aided by the misfortunes of the incumbent government.
Key factors
Frustration with a mismanaged economy, high unemployment and corruption were key factors in the election, which saw Mahama return to the presidency.
Having been out of power for the past eight years – having lost two elections since his last stint as president – Mahama was able to place the blame squarely on the current administration of Nana Akufo-Addo.
The election came in the throes of the country’s worst economic crisis, despite being a leading producer of cocoa, gold and, more recently, oil. Food prices are soaring and the national currency, the cedi, had plummeted against the US dollar.
The country’s economic crisis peaked in 2022, when Ghana defaulted on its $30 billion foreign debt for the first time.
By the end of that year, inflation had risen to over 50 percent and the country was unable to finance the following year’s budget.
Electricity outages as a result of cuts in supplies by companies owed more than $1.6 billion by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) have become regular.
President Akufo-Addo’s government had been forced to seek a $3 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan package to support the economy, despite earlier promises never to do so.
The IMF released the third tranche of the loan, worth $360 million, last week. It had disbursed $600 million in July 2023 and similar amount in January 2024. Inflation has slowed to 20 percent since 2020, but the cost of living remains burdensome for many.
Fixing the economy
Unemployment hit 14.7 percent, according to 2023 government data. The lack of jobs has forced young Ghanaians, especially health workers, to leave the country.
Mr Bawumia’s campaign blamed other factors, including Covid-19, the Russia-Ukraine war and even problems created during Mahama’s last presidency.
The vice president had promised new economic strategies, including the removal of some taxes, such as import duties on mobile phones.
Mahama, for his part, made the economy a cornerstone of his campaign, promising to cut the number of ministers to reduce government spending. He described Akufo-Addo and Bawumia’s IMF deal as “reckless”.
The two main parties differed in their approach to fixing the economy. While the ruling NPP favoured private sector-led growth to boost the economy, the NDC wanted to implement government-led interventionist policies such as large public infrastructure projects in agriculture and manufacturing.
Corruption had led to a general dislike of the ruling party and its officials. In 2023, Ghana ranked 70th out of 180 countries on the Corruption Perceptions Index, indicating high levels of political corruption.
Mahama of the NDC promised an “Operation Return all Loot” and to target corrupt officials.
There have been other missteps. In August, for example, Ghana’s water authority reportedly cut off 75 percent of clean water supplies to communities, saying it could not remove the harmful chemicals and that the water was unsafe to drink.
The issue sparked protests and accusations that the government was ineffective, with some calling it “ecocide”.
Ghanaians’ hope
Ghanaians are hoping that the new president and the new group of 276 legislators elected on Saturday will steer the country for the next four years and solve the plethora of problems.
The general election took place in 276 constituencies across the country, with 18.8 million voters.
Mahama beat 11 other presidential candidates, including Bawumia. Eight of them represented political parties and four ran on independent tickets.
According to the results so far, Mahama’s party has also won the most seats in parliament, guaranteeing smoother policy-making.
Mahama, 65, was President from 2012 to 2017, when he was replaced by Akufo-Addo.
Mahama served the remainder of the uncompleted term of the late President John Atta Mills, who died in office in July 2012. He was subsequently elected to his own 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 first Ghanaian President to suffer defeat after one term in office. He contested and lost again to Akufo-Addo in 2020.
Since the return of multiparty politics in 1992, only candidates from the NDC or NPP have become president, and no party has won more than two consecutive terms.
ـــــــــــــــــــــ
* The East African correspondent in Abuja, Nigeria.
