Ghana’s opposition NDC leader John Mahama, 62, has rejected results of Ghana’s 7 Dec. Presidential and parliamentary elections citing “litany of irregularities and blatant rigging,” in favour of incumbent President Nana Akufo-Addo.
The Electoral Commission (EC) declared Akufo-Addo, 76, re-elected with 51.59% of the votes against Mahama’s 47.36%.
The Commission later revised the figure of valid votes cast, but insisted the revision and the unincluded results of Techiman South constituency where balloting was marred by violence, would not alter the declared results.
But the NDC is contesting the EC’s figures and calling for a re-run, because from the party’s calculations, none of the 12 candidates had met the constitutional requirements to be declared a winner.
The party also claimed that it had won 140 of the 275 parliamentary seats contested, against the 136 declared by the EC for it and 137 for the ruling NPP.
The police confirmed that at least five people were killed and 60 injured in the electoral violence, with two polling officials also arrested for vote tampering.
The violence in the latest elections is considered a blight on Ghana, a cocoa-rich nation with some 31 million population and about 17 million registered voters, seen as a beacon of democracy in West Africa, having witnessed peaceful transfer of political power for almost 20 years.
In his latest official statement, Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, Special Representative of the Secretary General and Head of the UN Office in West Africa and the Sahel urged his fellow compatriots to eschew violence and use legal means to seek redress of any grievances.
He specifically called on the political leaders to respect the Peace Agreement they signed before the polls and for the stamping out of vigilantism.
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