Peaceful Transition in Ghana Highlights Regional Democratic Progress

Ghanaian President-elect Nana Akufo-Addo was sworn into office on January 7, about a month after winning the presidential election against incumbent John Dramani Mahama of the center-left National Democratic Congress (NDC). Akufo-Addo, a former foreign minister, had twice previously sought the nation’s highest office for his center-right New Patriotic Party (NPP), losing in 2008 and 2012. This marks the third consecutive and fourth overall peaceful transition of power between parties in Ghana. Although one of the first states in Africa to gain independence in 1957, Ghana was nevertheless plagued by frequent coups d’état for its first several decades of independence.

Akufo-Addo campaigned on a platform of economic growth. He promoted the exploitation of untapped bauxite deposits and the integration of the aluminum industry through tax cuts and business incentives. As Africa’s second-largest producer of cocoa beans and gold, Ghana suffered due to falling commodity prices in recent years and had to accept an IMF bailout in 2015. Mahama promised to “stay the course” by continuing to promote jobs in infrastructure development.

The election saw a 70 percent turnout rate and was called “the most professionally run electoral process… in Africa in the last 20 years” by official monitors. Along with Ghana, several other countries in West Africa, including Nigeria, Cape Verde, and Benin, have recently experienced peaceful transitions of power. Together these countries serve as evidence that West Africa, long afflicted by civil wars, military coups, and rigged elections, is becoming a hotbed of emerging African democracies. As Nigerian election monitor Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai warned, “If you are an incumbent in Africa, beware.”

The official results had Akufo-Addo winning 54 percent of the vote share to Mahama’s 44 percent, with the NPP’s strongest support coming from the industrial and Asante-populated southwest, while the NDC swept the north and east. These regions have greater populations of minority groups such as the Dagbani and Ewe.

Nana Akufo-Addo was sworn in on January 7, 2016.

In the parliamentary elections, held concurrently with the presidential election, the NPP gained 48 seats to retake control of parliament. The NPP now holds a total of 171 seats to the NDC’s 104. This marks the first time in Ghana’s democratic history that only two parties are represented in the legislature.

Akufo-Addo’s term will expire in four years, with the next elections scheduled for late 2020.