Ghana's political parties welcome election results as thousands celebrate Akufo-Addo's win

Ghana’s two main political parties, the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), have welcomed the Electoral Commission’s declaration of the opposition candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo as the country’s president-elect.

Akufo-Addo who has had two unsuccessful attempts at the presidency, defeated the incumbent president, John Mahama by over one million votes to win the election.

The opposition candidate secured 5,716,026 votes representing 53.85 percent of the total votes cast while the incumbent president managed 4,713,277 representing 44.40 percent of the votes.

General Secretary of the ruling NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia told the media after the Electoral Commission’s announcement that even though they had some concerns regarding the election, they do accept the results.

“This is the constitutionally mandated body that conducts and declares results. We are ok with it,” he said.

He admitted that “no election is perfect” thus “looking at the outcome, there may be over voting and concerns but I don’t think it will be enough to overturn the verdict. The nation must move forward”.

The results declared by the Electoral Commission excludes results from four constituencies where the Commission said there were disputes over the polls hence the results had not been collated.

“The results of the four constituencies are immaterial to the final outcome of the presidential results,” Electoral Commission chairperson Charlotte Osei said on Friday evening.

For the opposition NPP, the victory could not have come at a better time.

Having criticized the NDC government’s handling of the economy for years, the party feels the election of its candidate, whose running mate is an economist and former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, is a show of trust from the electorates.

“It’s very sweet and we thank God,” Peter Mac Manu, manager of the NPP’s 2016 campaign told Africanews’ correspondent Odelia Ntiamoah Boampong.

“We thank the good people of Ghana and we are humbled by the decision of the electorates to give such a massive endorsement to Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. We are also humbled by the conceding of defeat coming for president Mahama that is what democracy is about. Ghana must move forward,” Mac Manu added.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of supporters of the opposition candidate have been celebrating his victory across the country.

NPP supporters in parts of the Ghanaian capital Accra, celebrated into the early hours of Saturday.