Ghana Elects President in Vote Fielding Two Longtime Rivals

(Bloomberg) --

Ghanaians are picking a president Monday in an election that’s expected to be tight, as the two front-runners face off for a third time.

President Nana Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party is seeking another four years at the helm of Africa’s top gold producer. His predecessor, John Mahama of the National Democratic Congress, aims to unseat him with a promise of mass infrastructure spending.

Mahama, 62, defeated Akufo-Addo in 2012 to serve his first full-term as president after completing the mandate of John Atta Mills who died in office. Akufo-Addo, 76, then beat him in a 2016 ballot, taking over the leadership of one of the continent’s most stable democracies.

The winner of Monday’s contest will be expected to sort out the country’s fiscal challenges. The havoc wreaked by the coronavirus pandemic drove Ghana’s ratio of debt to gross domestic product to 71% in September, the highest in four years.

Before the global health crisis, the West African nation was already under fiscal pressure due to the costs of cleaning up the banking sector and meeting energy-sector liabilities.

The top contenders, whose parties have dominated Ghanaian politics since 1992, will compete in a race fielding 12 candidates in total. The country’s 17 million voters will also choose 275 lawmakers in an exercise that will determine if the ruling NPP will retain control of parliament.

Ghanaians are casting their ballots from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the electoral commission promising to announce all results within 24 hours after polls close.

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