Election Day in Ghana: President Akufu-Addo battles head to head with former President Mahama for the third time

Polls are ongoing in Ghana, today Monday, December 7, 2020, and it’s a tough electoral race between incumbent President Nana Akufu-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and former President John Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). 

Today marks the third time Akufu-Addo and Mahama are competing against each other for the top office in the country and both of the two have previously won one poll: President Akufu-Addo won in 2016 and in 2012 Mahama won. There are also 10 other candidates contesting for the presidency in this election. 

This is the 8th general election in Ghana, and 7 million registered voters from 38,622 polling stations will cast their votes today. They will be voting for 275 lawmakers who will be serving as community representatives for the next four years. Voting started at 7:00 am and voters started queuing to cast their votes as early as 2:00 am this morning. 

Despite the constraints of the Covid 19 pandemic, Jean Mensa, electoral chief of the Ghana Electoral Commission has assured the people of Ghana that as a commission they will want to announce the results of the elections within 24 hours. 

As the race in the election is one of the toughest both President Akufu-Addo and former President Mahama has on Friday, December 4, signed a peace agreement to accept the outcome of the election result. 

On Sunday night President Akufu-Addo addresses the nation and encourages people to go out and cast their votes peacefully. He also asked people to not use Covid 19 as an excuse not to cast their votes.