As the clock strikes midnight on Saturday, 7th December 2024, Ghanaians from all walks of life are eagerly anticipating a momentous event to choose their leaders in a keenly contested presidential and parliamentary elections. This year, a total of 13 individuals are standing as presidential candidates, 4 are independent. The two leading candidates; current vice president, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) squares off with former president John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in a historic contest. I will show you what makes this race a historic one later.

The leading candidates have made campaign stops around the country in an attempt to sell their policy proposals to the Ghanaian populace in every corner of the country. Both NPP and NDC candidates have made returning visits to the Ashanti Region, a stronghold of the NPP, that has become a key region that could help to decide who takes the seat of government. In the sense that, if NPP wins Ashanti NDC would have to win about 9 more regions to match up the votes there in order to win the presidency. However, the discontentment within the NPP particularly in that stronghold coupled with the decision of a party stalwart to resign and go independent, allegiances have likely shifted which could affect the chances of the NPP candidate there. Alan Kyerematen, Leader of the Movement for Change, served a full tenure as Minister of Trade and Industry in the Nana Akufo-Addo-led administration until his resignation in January 2023 to contest the flagbearership of the NPP. Known to be one of the founders of NPP, his subsequent resignation from the NPP after losing the contest to Dr. Bawumia citing differences on the future of the NPP has undoubtedly landed a heavily blow on the party as other seasoned members of the party followed him to his independent alliance. While Bawumia’s team made last minute dash to woo Ashanti voters, the party may yet witness their biggest apathy in the region with residents voting for NPP parliamentary candidates and ignoring the presidential.

This election season has seen arguable the most campaign activity in the history of elections since the first republic with media buys across radio, television, newspapers and outdoor advertising by all the candidates; mini rallies in all constituencies, even the President has been busy with a series of commissioning nearly completed and uncompleted projects just to appease the voters. Since 2016 when political activities peaked on social media, the political parties and actors have seen the medium as another vehicle to convey their campaign messages to the largely untapped demographic of young, urban and mostly college-educated Ghanaians. This year, the candidates have splurged across digital media with various campaign messaging, where about 92 percent of Ghanaians agree social media makes more people informed about current events, according to an Afrobarometer (Round 8; 2019) Survey.

Infographic courtesy: Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO)

A total of 18,774,159 Ghanaians have been registered by the Electoral Commission (EC) but 18,640,811 of the registered voters are on the EC’s biometric register. About 62 percent of Ghanaians believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and that group of voters are in high spirits looking forward to the election on Saturday to exercise their franchise hoping to rid off the incumbent NPP. The economy is the top issue driving voters in this election with one poll pegging it at 55 percent of Ghanaians sampled who shared that sentiment; 9 percent said it was the ‘galamsay’ (illegal gold mining) menace. For the first time in history of the Fourth Republic, the two leading contenders hail from Northern Ghana where NDC’s John Mahama is a native of the Savannah Region while NPP’s Mahamudu Bawumia a native of the North-East Region. Dr. Bawumia is looking to succeed his immediate boss President Akufo-Addo while Mr. Mahama, a former president, is also looking to finish his tenure as he only completed one term in office after losing the election to Nana Akufo Addo in 2016. Mr. Mahama has promised to ‘reset’ Ghana back to a period of high growth, low inflation and stable currency from a troubled economy that the government has been accused of mismanagement under which Dr. Bawumia served as Head of the Economic Management Team.