PRESIDENT ELECT! John Dramani Mahama
Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC) Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan last night announced the candidate of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) John Dramani Mahama as the president-elect, having garnered 5,574,761 votes, representing 50.7 percent of the total votes cast, ahead of other contenders in Ghana’s 2012 presidential race.
The New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was credited with 5,248,898 votes representing 47.74 percent. This is the official verdict of the EC which recorded a total of 10,995,262 votes nationwide.
The other six smaller parties on the bill received a little above one percent of total votes cast.
Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) scored 64,362, representing 0.5 percent.
Dr. Henry Herbert Lartey of the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP) came next with a total of 38,223 votes, representing 0.35 per cent.
The People’s National Convention (PNC) candidate, Hassan Abdulai Ayariga managed 24, 617 of the total votes at a margin of 0.22 per cent.
The Convention People’s Party’s (CPP) Dr. Abu Sakara Forster had only 0.18 per cent of the votes representing a total of 20, 323 votes.
The sole independent candidate on the ballot box, Joseph Osei Yeboah scored 0.14 per cent at 15,201 votes.
The candidate with the least achievement is the presidential candidate of the United Front Party (UFP) Akwasi Addai Odike who attained 0.08 per cent of total votes which sums up to 8,877 votes.
Earlier, there were conflicting reports from different media houses about the true state of the result of the problem-fraught elections that uncharacteristically dragged on for two days (Friday December 7 and Saturday December 8, 2012).
Major media web portals namely, myjoyonline, peacefmonline and citifmonline all claimed to have gotten access to the results from the Electoral Commission’s (EC) collation centres scattered across the country, yet these outlets put up varied results.
The NDC was already basking in the euphoria of victory. However, the opposition NPP raised issues with the results being traded by the media houses because it believed it did not correspond with official figures collated by the party.
The NPP had written to the EC to thoroughly scrutinize the results it was receiving because it was not adding up.
This was followed by a meeting with the EC, National Peace Council, the Council of State and other interest groups.
But at the meeting, it was resolved that the allegations were not enough to overturn the results.
The EC said it needed enough documents to substantiate the allegations.
The NDC disagreed with this point though.
On Sunday, at the NDC headquarters, party General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia staged a press conference stating their resolve to respect the result out there in the public domain.
Conceding Defeat
Before the EC could declare the winner of the presidential elections, some presidential candidates of the smaller parties who made extremely poor showing, went public, conceding defeat.
Independent Candidate, Jacob Osei Yeboah conceded defeat on Sunday, calling on Ghanaians to continue to live in peace and unity while announcing his readiness to join the NDC.
The second person to throw in the towel even before the EC could make its verdict public was the People’s National Convention’s (PNC) Hassan Abdulai Ayariga, whose results barely exceeded 0.22 percent of total votes cast. He staged a press conference on Sunday to concede defeat.
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