11, December 2020
Ghana opposition candidate Mahama rejects ‘fraudulent’ election results 0
Ghana’s opposition candidate John Mahama on Thursday rejected as “fraudulent” the results of the country’s presidential and parliamentary elections in which President Nana Akufo-Addo won a second term.
Challenging election results could test the stability of the west African nation, where previous electoral grievances have been pursued through the courts.
A day earlier, the electoral commission said that Akufo-Addo had won 51.59 percent of the vote on Monday, ahead of Mahama with 47.36 percent.
But Mahama rejected those numbers.
“I stand before you tonight unwilling to accept the fictionalised results of a flawed election,” he told a news conference.
“We will take all legitimate steps to reverse this tragedy of justice.”
The 62-year-old claimed that “numerous steps have been taken to manipulate the results of the election in favour of the incumbent.”
The tightly contested race has led to tensions between the two main parties, with the opposition candidate accusing the president of abuse of power.
“Armed forces featured heavily as an intimidating measure to reverse election results,” Mahama said and called on the international community “to remain engaged in what is happening in Ghana and to take careful note of the current threat that is being waged to our democracy.”
According to the provisional results published by the electoral commission, Akufo-Addo’s New Patriotic Party (NPP) won 137 seats in parliament, while Mahama’s National Democratic Congress (NDC) won 136.
The full results of the parliamentary elections have not yet been announced but the opposition leader said his party had in fact won 140 seats.
‘Work together’
It is not uncommon for presidential candidates to contest results.
Mahama and Akufo-Addo are long-standing rivals and this was their third election battle.
In 2012, it was Akufo-Addo who contested Mahama’s win.
In a victory speech to supporters Wednesday, the 76-year-old president-elect said it was time “irrespective of political affiliations, to unite, join hands and stand shoulder to shoulder.”
“The Ghanaian people through the results have made it loud and clear that the two parties, the NPP and NDC, must work together especially in parliament, for the good of the country.”
Observers, both Ghanaian and foreign, viewed polling as generally free and fair, but police said five people were killed and 19 injured in election-related violence.
Akufo-Addo and Mahama had signed a symbolic peace pact ahead of the vote, which the 15-nation regional bloc ECOWAS urged “all political parties and their leadership to respect.”
Ghana has recorded high levels of growth during Akufo-Addo’s first term as he worked to diversify an economy largely dependent on cocoa exports and more recently oil and gold.
On education in particular, he is considered to have done well, which matters in a country where 18- to 35-year-olds account for more than half of all eligible voters.
But while Ghana has made large strides in recent years, many still live in extreme poverty, with scarce access to clean water or electricity.
Severely hit by the pandemic, growth in the nation of 30 million people is expected to fall this year to its lowest in three decades.
The International Monetary Fund is pencilling in growth of 0.9 percent for the country, down sharply from 6.5 percent growth in 2019.
An urgent task for the next government will be to limit mounting debt and control rising inflation.
Source: AFP
15, December 2020
Ivory Coast’s Ouattara sworn in for disputed third term 0
Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara was sworn in for a controversial third term on Monday, urging the opposition to help defuse tensions after election-related violence claimed 85 lives in the West African powerhouse.
The ceremony was attended by 13 African counterparts as well as French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy — but boycotted by the opposition, as was the October 31 election that returned Ouattara to power.
“I ask all political parties to seize this new opportunity… to defuse tensions through dialogue,” the 78-year-old president said, noting publicly for the first time that legislative elections will be held in the first quarter of 2021.
Ouattara promised the creation of a national reconciliation ministry in the next government, while stressing that “violence and intolerable acts… should not go unpunished”.
It was a tacit warning to several opposition leaders who were arrested in the wake of the election, with legal proceedings over “sedition” launched against them.
But leading opposition figure Henri Konan Bedie last week proposed a “national dialogue”.
He also announced the dissolution of a rival government, the “National Transition Council”, that the opposition set up after the election, a move that landed spokesnan Pascal Affi N’Guessan in jail.
Bedie, 86, a former president himself, stopped short of recognising Ouattara’s re-election with more than 94 percent of the vote.
Ouattara and his supporters had argued that a 2016 revision of the constitution reset his term counter to zero, allowing him to seek a third term.
Pre- and post-election violence has claimed at least 85 lives since August, with around 500 injured, according to an official toll.
– Memories of civil war –
For many Ivorians, the bloodletting revived painful memories of the aftermath of disputed elections in 2010.
A political standoff was followed by a brief civil war in which around 3,000 people died and an estimated 1.3 million people fled their homes.
Ouattara has asked his prime minister, Hamed Bakayoko, to resume discussions with the opposition on the composition of the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI).
The opposition is demanding a reform of the body, which it accuses of bias.
In his speech on Monday, Ouattara said he would devote his third term to education and the social safety net as well as reconciliation, vowing to lift three million people out of poverty.
While the country of 25 million has enjoyed strong economic growth and the completion of several infrastructure projects under Ouattara, critics say the poorest have been left behind.
Source: AFP