John Atta Mills of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has won Ghana's presidential election, the electoral commission said today.
It said the results of a run-off in which a final constituency voted yesterday showed Mr Mills had won narrowly with 50.23 per cent of the votes, against 49.77 per cent for Nana Akufo-Addo of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Announcing the results at a news conference in the capital Accra, Electoral Commission chairman Kwadwo Afari-Gyan said turnout in the run-off vote, which was held in most of the country on December 28th, was 72.91 per cent.
Run-off voting in all but one of the West African country's 230 constituencies was inconclusive, so the election was decided by yesterday's voting in the remote farming constituency of Tain.
The NPP, which lost its parliamentary majority in the poll but remains in power until President John Kufuor steps down on January 7th, boycotted the Tain vote over security concerns.
The party also tried unsuccessfully to prevent the Tain vote taking place through a court injunction.
The knife-edge poll has raised tensions in the gold- and cocoa-exporting country, threatening to mar a vote seen as a chance to bolster Africa's battered democratic credentials after flawed and bloody polls in Zimbabwe and Kenya.
"Without a doubt the road today has been long and hard work," Mr Afari-Gyan said.
Each side has accused the other's supporters of violence and irregularities and appealed to the electoral commission to review some results from last Sunday's vote.
Mr Afari-Gyan said the commission had found no evidence to call the results into question and declared Mr Mills president-elect.
Reuters