ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Polls opened in presidential and legislative elections in Ghana Saturday, poised to be a litmus take a look at for democracy in a area shaken by extremist violence and coups.
Some 18.7 million persons are registered to vote within the West African nation hit by one of many worst financial crises in a era. Nevertheless, the 2 principal candidates supply little hope for change for the nation.
Ghana was once a poster youngster for democracy within the area. At a time when coups threatened democracy in West Africa, Ghana has emerged as a beacon of democratic stability with a historical past of peaceable elections. It had additionally been an financial powerhouse, priding itself on its financial growth.
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However in recent times, it has struggled with a profound financial disaster, together with surging inflation and a scarcity of jobs.
In keeping with an opinion ballot launched earlier this 12 months by Afrobarometer, a analysis group, 82% of Ghanaians really feel their nation is headed within the mistaken route
Though 12 candidates are working to change into Ghana’s subsequent president, Saturday’s election — like earlier ones for the reason that return of multiparty politics in 1992 — has emerged as a two-horse race.
Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia is the candidate of the ruling New Patriotic Get together, or NPP, which has struggled to resolve the financial disaster. He faces off towards former President John Dramani Mahama, the chief of the primary opposition social gathering Nationwide Democratic Congress, or NDC. He was voted out in 2016 after failing to ship on guarantees for the financial system.
The NDC prides itself as a social democratic social gathering, whereas the ruling NPP tags itself as leaning to the appropriate. However in truth, analysts and voters mentioned, the applications of their presidential candidates don’t differ in a major approach.
2 hundred seventy-six members of parliament can even be elected Saturday. The ruling NPP social gathering and the primary opposition NDC every have 137 members within the 275-member legislature, with one impartial member who has been voting principally together with the ruling social gathering. Yet another constituency might be allowed to vote on this election, bringing the variety of deputies to 276.
Of their last marketing campaign rallies Thursday, each candidates made a final push to pitch their political events as the reply to Ghana’s financial woes.
Bawumia, 61, an Oxford-educated economist and former deputy governor of the nation’s central financial institution, promised to construct on the outgoing administration’s efforts and stabilize the financial system.
Mahama, 65, then again, restated his promise to “reset” the nation on varied fronts. “We have to reset our democracy, governance, financial system, funds, agriculture, infrastructure, setting, well being sector, and all that we maintain expensive as a folks,” the previous president mentioned.
Throughout the the capital of Accra, the temper for the election has been upbeat in posters and billboards with bikers displaying stunts, political rallies on the streets, election jingles and songs blasting from public audio system.
However the concern for a lot of can be palpable for the important thing factor at stake: The nation’s ailing financial system, which has been challenged on varied fronts in recent times.
The nation defaulted on most of its international debt final 12 months because it confronted a worsening financial disaster that spiked the worth of gasoline, meals and different important objects. The inflation fee had hit 54% by the top of final 12 months and although it’s been coming down since then, not many Ghanaians can nonetheless inform the distinction once they go to the market.
The continual problem of unlawful gold mining — identified regionally as galamsey — has additionally been a significant situation within the marketing campaign and a supply of concern for voters, triggering protests and criticism towards the outgoing authorities.
Ghana is Africa’s high gold producer and the world’s sixth largest, however the commodity has been more and more mined illegally as folks change into extra determined to search out jobs in an financial system that has been crumbling. The mining has polluted rivers and different elements of the setting regardless of authorities actions to clamp down on the follow.
