Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo won re-election with 51.59 percent of the vote, results from the election commission showed on Wednesday, as deadly violence gripped the West African country.
The results follow a contentious poll that both candidates had said they were leading based on their camps’ tallies. Five people were killed in election violence since Monday, police said, marring what observers said was a well-organised vote.
The Ghanaian Police Service said it recorded more than 60 incidents at Monday’s vote, in which President Nana Akufo-Addo ran for re-election against his main rival, former president John Mahama, and 10 other candidates.
“Twenty-one of the incidents are true cases of electoral violence, six of which involve gunshots resulting in the death of five,” it said.
Independent observers this week congratulated Ghana for conducting largely peaceful polls, in line with its reputation as one of West Africa’s most stable democracies.
But tensions have risen as the camps of Mahama and Akufo-Addo said their tallies showed their candidate in the lead.
There were issues on election day about the procedure of voting, then immediately after the voting there were complaints about the way the result were being sorted out,” Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris, reporting from the capital Accra, said.
What we are hearing right now is that in the city of Tamale there has been protests going on by the opposition party claiming there were some irregularities and attempts to subvert with the will of people.
We understand there has been an incident at the headquarters of the electoral commission, and we have seen in the last few minutes or so that the military police and other paramilitary organisation are ensuring that there is no breakdown of law and order.
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Source: aljazeera
