{"id":105594,"date":"2020-12-12T10:55:51","date_gmt":"2020-12-12T02:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=105594"},"modified":"2020-12-12T10:55:53","modified_gmt":"2020-12-12T02:55:53","slug":"ghana-election-main-opposition-party-will-contest-election-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=105594","title":{"rendered":"Ghana election: Main opposition party will contest election results"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"John<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

John Dramani Mahama, flagbearer of National Democratic Congress<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ACCRA, Dec 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ghana\u2019s main opposition party, the National Democratic Congress, whose candidate came in second in a tightly contested presidential election, has said it will contest the results announced by the electoral commission.

President\u00a0Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo<\/a>\u00a0was re-elected for a second term after Monday\u2019s presidential and legislative elections.

The election has tested the West African nation\u2019s credentials as one of the continent\u2019s most politically stable countries.

Akufo-Addo of the governing New Patriotic Party won Monday\u2019s election outright with 51.3% of the votes, beating former President\u00a0John Dramani Mahama<\/a>\u00a0of the main opposition party, who received 47.3%, the commission said on Wednesday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commission chair Jean Mensa amended the figures early Thursday, changing the percentage only slightly, but still giving Akufo-Addo the outright win.

A leading member of the NDC party,\u00a0Haruna Iddrisu<\/a>, called the results flawed.

\u201cWe have done extensive consultation of the outcome of the election and come to the conclusion that it is flawed and discredited and therefore reject it,\u201d he said after results were announced.

Iddrisu accused the head of the Electoral Commission of acting in \u201cbad faith\u201d because she ignored a petition by former president Mahama asking her to address some of his concerns and went ahead to announce the \u201cdiscredited\u201d outcome.

\u201cThe conduct of the EC chairperson and other available information makes it impossible for us to accept the results of the election,\u201d he said.

More than 13 million people voted at more than 38,600 polling stations, making the turnout about 79%, said the Electoral Commission.

Speaking after the declaration, Akufo-Addo said he was grateful to Ghanaians for the victory and was at the same time, \u201chumbled by the confidence\u201d he earned with their votes.

He promised to work hard to build a prosperous Ghana, adding that this can be achieved only if \u201cwe all unite to join hands and stand shoulder to shoulder to put Ghana where it should be.\u201d

The president said his priorities are to reverse the effects of COVID-19 and then rebuild the economy.

Most of the 10 other candidates in the election congratulated Akufo-Addo. This was the third time Akufo-Addo and Mahama faced off. Mahama won the 2012 elections, but lost in 2016 to Akufo-Addo.

The streets of Accra, the capital, were filled with celebrations after the announcement.

Police said at least five people had been killed and at least a dozen injured in violence related to the presidential and legislative elections. Twenty-one violent outbreaks have been identified as election-related across the country, Ghana\u2019s Police Service said. — NNN-AGENCIES

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Dramani Mahama, flagbearer of National Democratic Congress ACCRA, Dec 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ghana\u2019s main opposition party, the National Democratic Congress, whose candidate came in second in a tightly contested presidential election, has said it will contest the results announced by the electoral commission. President\u00a0Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo\u00a0was re-elected for a second term after Monday\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":105597,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105594"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/105597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}