Opposition leader claims Ghana victory

GHANA opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo has come under fire after claiming to have won a tense presidential election, even though local media put him slightly ahead yesterday.

Akufo-Addo is running against incumbent John Mahama in a nailbiting election seen as a test for a country generally viewed as a beacon of stability in west Africa.

However, tensions were rising in Ghana as anxious citizens awaited the results of Wednesday’s elections that were tainted by sporadic incidents of violence.

In a statement issued late Thursday, the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers “condemned” AkufoAddo after the challenger said he was “quietly confident” he had beaten Mahama.

However, the “polling and counting processes were generally credible,” said the coalition of election observers.

The count is proceeding at a slow pace and the electoral agency said it needed 72 hours from the polls closing – on Wednesday – to publish the final official results.

While election day itself was relatively peaceful, there are fears that the delay in declaring the result could stoke tensions.

After doing their own calculations from publicly available constituency results, local media reported that Akufo-Addo had the lead.

PeaceFM put Akufo-Addo in the lead with 53.65% of the vote calculated from 210 of the 275 constituencies.

CitiFM also gave the opposition leader the edge with 56.45% of the vote calculated from 187 constituencies.

Charismatic Mahama, 58, for a second term.

The leader of the ruling NDC party has urged voters to “stay the course”, promising to deliver more infrastructure projects.

Akufo-Addo, 72, is making his third and likely final bid for the highest office.

His New Patriotic Party (NPP) has blasted Ghana’s poor economic growth estimated at 3.3% in 2016 – the slowest rate in two decades – and outlined how to get the economy back on track. — AFP is running