Electoral officials use a lantern and a smartphone torchlight to assist people to vote late on December 7, 2016 at a polling station in Tamale, northern region. Counting was underway after presidential and parliamentary polls in Ghana on December 7, 2016, with incumbent John Mahama taking on rival Nana Akufo-Addo for the top job with no clear favourite in a high-stakes race. / AFP PHOTO
Ghana election: Ghanaians started lining up at voting stations on Wednesday to elect a president and parliament, in polls dominated by a three-year economic downturn that led to heavy job losses and price hikes.
President John Mahama is running for a second four-year term in the West African nation rich in gold, cocoa, diamonds, aluminium, bauxite and recently discovered oil.
Mahama is competing with six other candidates for the presidency, but his fiercest rival is Nana Akufo-Addo, the leader of the largest opposition, New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Report says the incumbent president remains popular in the nation of 26 million people, which was the first sub-Saharan country to gain independence in colonial Africa, in 1957.
The 58-year-old made major progress in improving Ghana’s infrastructure by building schools, health facilities and roads.
However, many voters held Mahama and the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) responsible for a debilitating three-year energy crisis that led to a 10 per cent drop in economic growth between 2011 and 2015.
They also held him responsible for sharp rise in electricity, water and petrol prices.
Akufo-Addo, 72, promises to use Ghana’s new-found oil to create jobs and push industrialisation in all economic sectors, including agriculture.
Over 15 million Ghanaians are eligible to cast their vote at one of the 29,000 polling stations until 1700 GMT.
They will also elect 275 parliamentarians for the next four years.
If no presidential candidate gains 51 per cent or more of the vote, the election will go into a second round.
Results are expected Friday after voting ended in Wednesday.
People watch update results of the general elections after midnight on a big projector screen installed in Teshie Police Station in Accra, on December 8, 2016.
Counting was underway after presidential and parliamentary polls in Ghana on December 7, with incumbent John Mahama taking on rival Nana Akufo-Addo for the top job with no clear favourite in a high-stakes race. The majority of voting stations closed at 5:00 pm, (1700 GMT) with a policeman standing at the end of queues across the country to mark the last voter.
/ AFP PHOTO
Electoral officials use a lantern and a smartphone torchlight to assist people to vote late on December 7, 2016 at a polling station in Tamale, northern region.
Counting was underway after presidential and parliamentary polls in Ghana on December 7, 2016, with incumbent John Mahama taking on rival Nana Akufo-Addo for the top job with no clear favourite in a high-stakes race. / AFP PHOTO
Electoral officials use a lantern and a smartphone torchlight to assist people to vote late on December 7, 2016 at a polling station in Tamale, northern region.
Counting was underway after presidential and parliamentary polls in Ghana on December 7, 2016, with incumbent John Mahama taking on rival Nana Akufo-Addo for the top job with no clear favourite in a high-stakes race. / AFP PHOTO
Supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidate Nana Akufo-Addo, wait outside his house in the Nima neighbourhood in Accra on December 8, 2016.
Ghanaians faced an anxious wait on December 8 for the results of a nail-biting presidential election tainted by sporadic outbreaks of violence, with no clear favourite emerging from the early provisional results. / AFP PHOTO
Policemen stand guard outside the headquarters of the Electoral Commission in Accra on December 8, 2016.
Ghanaians faced an anxious wait on December 8 for the results of a nail-biting presidential election tainted by sporadic outbreaks of violence, with no clear favourite emerging from the early provisional results. / AFP PHOTO
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