Former President of Ghana, John Mahama has won the presidential election held on Saturday. He defeated the country’s sitting Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia.
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Mahamudu Bawumia has accepted defeat and congratulated John Mahama on his victory.
“The people have voted for change,” said Bawumia.
Bawumia said he was basing his concession on internal tallies from the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).
He said these showed Mahama had won “decisively”, while the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) had also won the parliamentary election.
Mahama confirmed that Bawumia had called to congratulate him on his “emphatic victory”.
Despite Bawumia’s concession, no official results have been declared.
The Electoral Commission (EC) said results had been delayed because supporters of the two main parties were impeding the process and it had asked the police to clear the collation centres.
Mahama’s supporters have taken to the streets around the country to celebrate, cheering, waving flags, blowing horns and spinning motorbikes.
The elections come amid the country’s worst economic crisis in a generation, which saw the cost of basic goods shoot up, while young people struggled to get jobs and the country was unable to repay its debts.
Although the election has generally been peaceful, two people were shot dead on Saturday in separate incidents, while the electoral commission office in the northern town of Damongo has been destroyed, allegedly by NDC supporters angry at the delays in announcing the results.
Ghanaians had expected the first results to be announced within hours of the polls closing, however the head of the Electoral Commission has asked for patience, noting that it has 72 days to declare the results.
Nnamdi Maduakor is a Writer, Investor and Entrepreneur
