Around 17 million Ghanaian voters will get to choose one of 12 presidential candidates as well as a total of 275 representatives to sit in the country’s parliament.
Monday’s election is the country’s eighth since it transitioned to a multiparty democracy in 1992, but its first since the passing of a political titan of Ghanaian politics, J.J. Rawlings, who died last month. Rawlings came to power in Ghana in a 1979 military coup. He oversaw the transition to democracy in 1992 and won the presidency in the elections, then was re-elected in 1996.
Sputnik reported last month that with Rawlings’ death, former Ghanaian Special Prosecutor Martin Amidu felt he could no longer guarantee the independence of his office from the administration of Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo. The head of state, who appointed Amidu to chase down corruption in his administration in 2018, had recently pressured him to change his position in a report on a proposal to sell off much of the country’s extensive gold futures on the London stock exchange - a plan called the Agyapa Deal.
Old Rivals
In Monday’s election, Akufo-Addo, from the center-right New Patriotic Party (NPP), is being challenged by his predecessor, John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), a leftist party founded by Rawlings. According to Al Jazeera, it is the third time the two men have run against one another, each vying for a second and final term as president.
In their first contest in 2012, Mahama just barely won following an eight-month battle in Ghana’s Supreme Court over the veracity of the results, although Akufo-Addo returned to beat him in 2016.
Gold is just one issue on the ballot on Monday: Accra took out a $1 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund in April, and both candidates have pledged to make the most of the cash via infrastructure investment.
In the election race, Akufo-Addo has played up his administration’s record on expanding access to electricity and education and has promised to build a new airport in the center of the country. Mahama has promised more of the same kind of infrastructure projects as characterized his 2012-2017 presidency, and has promised to provide university students with free laptops.
Fears of Election Fraud Loom
However, the 2020 election is fraught with more than the usual political tensions. In October, Mahama drew attention to what he called a “flawed” electoral process, saying he might not respect the results if they’re found to be fraudulent.
“We are not trouble makers. We want to make sure that all of us believe in this election so that if you win or lose, you are prepared to accept. But when we complain, they think that we are just causing trouble. This can lead this nation to chaos because I have said it, on December 7 when this election is flawed, we will not accept it,” Mahama told a crowd of his supporters in Abura, according to Modern Ghana.
“Who accepts a flawed election? Nobody,” he said, adding, “And everything the Electoral Commission is doing is showing that we are heading to a flawed election.”
The Electoral Commission (EC) had pledged to eliminate manual verification at polling stations, replacing it with Biometric Verification Devices. However, Mahama warned that with just 33,000 devices set to roll out on Monday, this contest could have the most manual verification of any election held in the country.
Indeed, Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday that the EC reported removing some of its officials after discovering them tampering with ballot papers in Awutu Senya West and Bawku Central. The ballots reportedly had been torn out of the distribution booklet in such a way as to have omitted Akufo-Addo, who was placed at the bottom of the list.
EC Chair Jean Mensa has promised the results will be announced by Tuesday evening, which should bolster confidence in the system.
“We are promoting some efficiency into the system. We have worked with our numbers and we have a duration within which the results should be transmitted,” she told reporters in Accra on November 20, adding that “because of the efficiency we have introduced into the processes, we should be able to declare results within 24 hours.”
‘Peace Pact’ Appears to Hold
Past elections have often seen vigilante groups hired by politicians to keep people away from the polls on election day, but a bipartisan 2019 law made vigilantism punishable with a minimum of 10 years in prison, the BBC reported, adding that the law “has so far been a deterrence judging from events leading to the election.”
Still, there are more than a few fears of social unrest, and some 63,000 military and paramilitary officers had been deployed across the country as a preemptive measure.
Professor Kwesi Aning, who is the director of the Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Accra, told Al Jazeera, “Though a peace pact has been signed to deal, especially with the fallouts from the results, work needs to be done to sensitive grassroots supporters about the law and the need to respond to disputes legal.”
“The onus is on party leaders and structures. From history, there is a wide chasm between the flowery words of peace and the speed with which war drums are beaten when there are electoral disputes,” he added.
A risk of violence still hung over the election, however - not from vigilantes, but from separatists along the country’s eastern border with Togo from the Ewe people, an ethnic group that lives mostly in Togo.
In September, a daring operation by a group calling itself the Western Togoland Restoration Front staged a number of attacks on a bus terminal and several police stations in the eastern Volta Region and successfully blockaded all major entry points into the province with a series of protests.