The two main contenders in Ghana’s presidential election have launched duelling manifestos promising fiscal stability, jobs and a path out of the country’s worst economic downturn in a generation.<\/p>\n
Voters will head to the polls on Dec. 7 to elect a successor to President Nana Akufo-Addo, who is stepping down at the end of the two terms he is allowed to serve as head of the West African gold, oil and cocoa-producing nation.<\/p>\n
The election will pit ex-president John Dramani Mahama of the main opposition National Democratic Congress party against Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, an economist and former central banker, from Akufo-Addo’s ruling New Patriotic Party.<\/p>\n
No party has ever won more than two consecutive terms in government in Ghana’s democratic history.<\/p>\n
Frustrations about economic hardship have tainted Akufo-Addo’s presidency. Ghana defaulted on most of its $30 billion external debt in 2022 – the culmination of years of overstretched borrowing compounded by the COVID pandemic, the knock-on impacts of the war in Ukraine and a rise in global interest rates.<\/p>\n
The government sought help from the International Monetary Fund and is now\u00a0restructuring its debt\u00a0as a condition for a $3 billion support package.<\/p>\n
Both Mahama and Bawumia laid out their policy promises over the weekend ahead of a vote analysts predict to be tight two-man contest, even though others are running.<\/p>\n
Mahama, 65, vowed to scrap first-year university fees to boost tertiary education and reduce taxes during his first three months in office.<\/p>\n
“I will lead a ruthless war against corruption” and recover misappropriated assets, he told supporters in the south central city of Winneba on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Mahama invested heavily in infrastructure during his 2013-17 presidency but drew criticism over power shortages, economic instability and alleged state corruption. He was never directly accused of wrongdoing but oversaw the government that was. His government denied wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
NPP critics say graft continued and grew worse under Akufo-Addo’s administration. His administration has also denied wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
Bawumia promised to simplify the tax system, almost halve the number of ministers and cut public spending by 3% of GDP.<\/p>\n
Addressing reporters in the capital Accra on Sunday, he outlined a plan to provide digital training to one million young people to help them find jobs.<\/p>\n
Both candidates are from northern Ghana, a long-standing NDC stronghold in which the NPP has made inroads over the past years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The two main contenders in Ghana’s presidential election have launched duelling manifestos promising fiscal stability, jobs and a path out of the country’s worst economic downturn in a generation. Voters will head to the polls on Dec. 7 to elect a successor to President Nana Akufo-Addo, who is stepping down at the end of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12720,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"Reuters","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,27],"tags":[158,2858,1686,378,3045,3046],"class_list":["post-13078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-ghana","tag-john-dramani-mahama","tag-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-nana-akufo-addo","tag-national-democratic-congress","tag-new-patriotic-party"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}