Ghana’s presidential and parliamentary elections in December 2008 were widely praised as a successful democratic transfer of power. The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate, John Atta Mills, narrowly defeated the candidate of the ruling National Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo, in a presidential runoff vote on December 28. Power similarly transferred hands in the parliament as the NDC secured 114 seats against the NPP’s 107.  There were problems with voter registration early on, and both parties reported minor instances of electoral fraud, although all were eventually dismissed by the Electoral Commission. Nevertheless, sporadic violence erupted between supporters of the two main parties and rival ethnic groups in the north throughout the year.

Ghana achieved independence from British rule in 1957. After the 1966 ouster of its charismatic independence leader, Kwame Nkrumah, the country was rocked for 15 years by a series of military coups. Successive military and civilian governments vied with one another in both incompetence and dishonesty.

In 1979, air force officer Jerry Rawlings led a coup against the ruling military junta, and although he returned power to a civilian government after a purge of corrupt senior army officers, he seized power again in December 1981. Rawlings’s new administration proved to be brutally repressive, banning political parties and quelling all dissent. In the face of a crumbling economy and political protests, he eventually agreed to legalize political parties and hold elections in the late 1980s. However, the elections were considered neither free nor fair, and Rawlings and his National Democratic Congress (NDC) party remained in power. The 1996 elections were generally respected at home and abroad, though Rawlings and the NDC again retained their positions.

In 2000, free and fair presidential and parliamentary polls led to a peaceful transfer of power from Rawlings (who was forced to step down due to term limits) and the NDC to opposition leader John Kufuor and his New Patriotic Party (NPP). Kufuor won soundly with 57 percent of the vote, while NDC candidate John Atta Mills captured 43 percent. Kufuor was reelected in 2004, defeating Atta Mills for a second time. The NDC alleged irregularities and called for a vote recount, but the Electoral Commission (EC) turned down the request. In that year’s legislative elections, the NPP won 128 seats, and the NDC took 94. Sporadic violence was reported, as were a few incidents of intimidation and other irregularities, but domestic and international observers judged the elections to be generally free and fair.

The NPP faced internal divisions as Kufuor neared the end of his second term, with some 20 candidates vying for the party’s presidential nomination by the end of 2007. Ultimately, Nana Akufo-Addo—most recently the foreign minister—was chosen over Kufuor’s preferred candidate, Alan Kyerematen. A new party, the Reformed Patriotic Democrats (RPD), broke away from the NPP in March 2008, claiming dissatisfaction with the ruling party’s performance, particularly with regard to the interests of young people. The majority of RPD supporters came from the Ashanti tribe, of which Kufuor and Kyerematen were members, while Akufo-Addo belonged to the Akyem tribe; the split increased tribal tensions. In April, Kyerematen himself resigned from the NPP, claiming that he and his supporters had been marginalized since Akufo-Addo’s selection and that the NPP had become intolerant of dissent. It was only after persistently promising to resolve these issues that the NPP was able to convince Kyerematen to rejoin.

Meanwhile, the NDC easily appointed John Atta Mills as its candidate for the third time. His choice of running mate, John Dramani Mahama, proved to be more divisive, as the wife of Jerry Rawlings stated publicly that neither she nor her husband would support Mahama. Although Rawlings still had considerable influence in the NDC, Atta Mills stuck with his selection.

The EC encountered a few problems during its election preparations. In February, it announced that it would not implement a 2007 law that permitted Ghanaians living overseas to vote, citing “capacity constraints.” The possibility of overseas voting had stirred controversy in the preceding months as the NDC argued that it would benefit the NPP. Separately, the NDC claimed in March that there had been irregularities in the voter registration process, particularly in a pro-NPP region. The EC launched an independent investigation that found discrepancies between the digital and hard copy versions of the voter registry. The investigation panel recommended that the EC strengthen its accounting and computer facilities and improve its relations with the political parties. When voter registration resumed in August, only minor instances of partisan violence were reported. Yet, by the end of the month, the EC admitted that there were ongoing registration problems and that it believed the registry to contain an excess of nearly one million names.

The National Enforcement Body of the Political Parties Code of Conduct reported a number of violations by both major parties in the run-up to the December elections. Instances of violence included a September campaign rally in the north at which six people were killed. The enforcement body also cited the parties for lack of cooperation with the police and the use of inflammatory language.

In the end, however, the elections were viewed as a success by both domestic and international observers. In the first round of the presidential election held on December 7, Akufo-Addo won 49 percent of the vote against Atta Mills’s 48 percent. As neither candidate received more than 50 percent, a runoff vote was held on December 28, when Atta Mills won with just 50.23 percent of the vote, marking the second ever peaceful transfer of power by democratic means in Ghana. Power similarly transferred hands in parliament as the NDC secured 114 seats against the NPP’s 107. Both parties reported minor instances of electoral fraud, but all were dismissed by the EC.

Intertribal clashes increased in the north during 2008. Rivalry between the Kusasi and Mamprusi tribes led to some 15 deaths and a curfew and weapons ban in the Bawku region for much of the year. In the northern Dagbon region, tension persisted between the Adani and Abudu tribes, both of which claimed to be the rightful heirs to the position of paramount chief in the region. Perceptions of allegiances between these ethnic groups and respective national political parties only served to aggravate the situation.

While Ghana has recently been working to move away from donor dependency, the country in September 2008 signed an agreement for a £250 million ($351 million) grant from Britain covering 2008–10. In addition, the government has privatized Ghana Telecom by selling a 70 percent stake to the British company Vodafone for $900 million. Revenue from oil fields recently discovered off the coast is expected to begin flowing during the incoming president’s term, increasing the determination of both parties to capture power in the 2008 elections.