Ghana’s Vice President Mahmoudow Bawumia has congratulated the opposition candidate after conceding defeat in Saturday’s election., Former President John Mahama, on his victory.
Bawumia said the people have voted for change.
The election comes amid the country’s worst economic crisis in a generation, which has seen prices of basic goods soar, while young people struggle to find jobs and the country defaults on its debts.
Despite Bawumia’s exception, no official results have been declared.
The Electoral Commission (EC) said the results were delayed because supporters of the two main parties were disrupting the process and had asked the police to evacuate coalition centres.
Mahama’s supporters have taken to the streets across the country to celebrate, cheering, waving flags, honking horns and riding motorbikes.
“I am very excited for this victory,” Salimo Abdulfataw told the BBC in the central city of Kumasi.
He said he hoped it would mean jobs for him and his siblings, while food and fuel prices would come down.
Even Nana, an NPP supporter, admitted that “My party is the NPP, but what they did was not good.
“The system was very bad in an election year and so most people were not happy.”
Although the elections have been generally peaceful, on Saturday two people were shot dead during an electoral dispute in the northern region of Nyankpala, while an election commission office was destroyed in another northern town, Damongo. had gone, allegedly by NDC supporters angry at the delay. In the declaration of results.
Ghanaians expected the first results to be announced within hours of polls closing, but the head of the Electoral Commission has shown patience, saying he has 72 days to announce the results.
In the north, warehouses have also been looted in both Damongo and Tamali.
Bawumia said he was basing his concession on the internal stature of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).
He said they 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 “resounding victory”.
The NDC earlier said its internal results showed Mahama won 56% of the vote compared to 41% for Bawumia.
The vice president said he was accepting defeat ahead of the official announcement of the results “to avoid further tension and to maintain the peace of our country”.
The US Embassy in the capital Accra congratulated Ghana on a “successful election”.
President Nana Akufo-Addo is stepping down after reaching the official limit of two terms in office.
Mahama, 65, previously led Ghana from 2012 to 2017, when he was replaced by Akufo-Addo. Maha also lost the 2020 election so this win represents a great comeback.
Since the return of multiparty politics to Ghana in 1992, the NDC and the NPP have alternated in power.
No party has ever won more than two consecutive terms in power – a trend that continues.
Mahama’s previous time in office was marred by an ailing economy, frequent power cuts and corruption scandals.
However, Ghanaians hope it will be different this time.
During the campaign, Mahama promised to transform Ghana into a “24-hour economy”.
In Tamale, NDC supporter Gajia One told the BBC: “We handed them over. [NPP] And thought that they can manage the country well, but they have failed, and we will take over again.”
“John Mahama is the right man to rule this country. We are fed up.”
The new president will be sworn in on January 7, 2025.
Additional reporting by Natasha Botti