(Bloomberg) -- Ghana’s opposition leader John Mahama is poised to win the Dec. 7 presidential election by the biggest margin in more than three decades after voters punished the ruling party for failing to tackle runaway inflation in the world’s second-largest cocoa producer.
The ruling party’s candidate, Mahamudu Bawumia conceded defeat during a televised briefing early on Sunday. Mahama has so far won 57.6% of the votes tallied in more than three-quarters of the nation’s 276 constituencies, Joy News television channel reported. The candidate of the National Democratic Congress has pledged to create jobs, cut taxes and make it easier to do business in Africa’s biggest gold producer.
“I am making this concession before the official announcement by the electoral commission to avoid further tension and preserve the peace of our country,” Bawumia said. “It’s important that the world investor community continues to believe in the peaceful and democratic character of Ghana.”
Voter anger over high living costs has brought down ruling parties in countries from Senegal to Mauritius. In Ghana, surging prices of staples such as banku — a dough made of fermented corn and cassava, as well as plantain and rice played a crucial role in the governing New Patriotic Party’s defeat. During President Nana Akufo-Addo’s second term, inflation accelerated to 54.1%, debt jumped to 761 billion cedis ($51.2 billion) and the currency weakened 61%, raising the cost of imports.
With Akufo-Addo stepping down after serving two terms, his deputy and the party’s presidential candidate, Bawumia, had to bear the brunt of voters’ anger.
Struggling citizens now want the next administration to eschew vanity projects such as the 5,000-seat National Cathedral of Ghana. Construction was originally supposed to cost $100 million, but the price tag quadrupled because of the cedi’s slide and inflation, and the project stalled after the government spent $58 million on it.
For voters in suburbs that lack basic amenities — including surfaced roads — the spending on the cathedral looks profligate.
“Government fiscal discipline is really critical,” Nana Kofi Agyeman Gyamfi, head of wealth management at Bora Capital Advisors Ltd., said in an interview in Bloomberg’s office in Accra before the vote. “Sometimes we keep throwing money at things that don’t really prop up the economy.”
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Mahama’s party was also leading in parliamentary elections, Joy TV reported. The smooth democratic transition in West Africa — a region that’s been hit by coups and violence — was hailed by the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers, which deployed 4,000 volunteers across the country. The observers said the polls were credible.
The Electoral Commission is likely to announce the final results later on Monday. Mahama’s victory also brings into power the nation’s first female vice-president, Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang.
Power has rotated like clockwork between the two main parties every eight years for more than three decades.
The NPP garnered 51% support in 2020, down from 54% four years earlier, after backing down on its pledge to tackle corruption and undertaking a banking sector cleanup that cost the state about $1.9 billion. The closure of hundreds of financial institutions also led to thousands of job losses.
Illegal mining of gold has also become an election issue because it has resulted in environmental damage. Illicit trade in the metal has robbed the cash-strapped nation of revenue. The government defaulted on its debt in late 2022 and secured a $3 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund.
Mahama, 66, lost his bid for a second term in 2016 to Akufo-Addo and failed again in 2020. His party’s supporters — wearing NDC’s white, green, red and black colors — rejoiced in the streets of Accra and other cities on Sunday.
“I assessed my life’s situation and voted,” Tayibatu Innusah, 48, an importer of clothing and electronic gadgets said after casting her ballot at Baatsona, near the port city of Tema. “In 2016, I could fill my car’s fuel tank with 200 cedis, and yet I thought Mahama’s government was wicked. Now I have to pay seven times more to fill the tank.”
Mahama is poised to win with the biggest margin since the advent of democracy in 1992.
--With assistance from Yinka Ibukun and Moses Mozart Dzawu.
(Updates to add latest tally in second paragraph.)
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