Ghana’s former President John Dramani Mahama has won the country’s presidential election, the Electoral Commission declared on Monday.
Mahama secured a total of 6,328,397 votes, constituting 56.55 percent of the total valid votes cast, said Jean Mensa, the EC chairperson, during a press conference to announce the results.
His closest rival, Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, representing the ruling New Patriotic Party, trailed behind with 4,657,304, constituting 41.61 percent of the votes.
According to the EC, these results were from 267 out of the 276 constituencies, as results from the remaining nine constituencies were not ready at the time of declaration.
If even all the total valid votes cast in the remaining nine constituencies were added to the person with the second highest number of votes, these cannot overturn the victory of the winner, stated Mensa.
“By the powers vested in me as the returning officer of the presidential elections, I hereby declare His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, representing the NDC, as the winner of the 2024 presidential election and the President-Elect of the Republic of Ghana,” the EC Chairperson added.
Article 63 (3) of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana requires a person to obtain more than 50 percent of total valid votes cast in a presidential election to be declared president.
Voter turnout in Saturday’s general election was 11,430,531, representing 60.9 percent of the 18,774,159 total registered voters, according to the EC chairperson. Total valid votes, however, stood at 11,191,422, with 239,109 rejected ballots.
Aged 66, Mahama was born on Nov. 29, 1958, in Damongo in the Savannah Region. He was president of Ghana between 2012 and 2017 but lost his re-election bid in the 2016 election to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
Mahama also once served as the parliamentarian for the Bole Bamboi constituency in his home region between 1996 and 2008 before becoming the vice president from 2009 to July 2012, when he stepped into the shoes of the late President John Evans Atta-Mills.
The 2024 election also set the record of having the first woman elected as vice president in Ghana.
He went ahead to win the presidential election in that same year, beating his main contender, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in that election.
Moreover, opposition National Democratic Congress also won 185 of the 265 parliamentary seats declared so far, with 80 falling to the NPP and some independent candidates.
Early Sunday, Vice President Mahamud Bawumia, who was the ruling New Patriotic Party’s presidential candidate conceded defeat to the former president whose victory he described as overwhelming.
“The people of Ghana have spoken, the people have voted for change at this time and we respect it with all humility,” Bawumia said last Sunday.