Ghanaian presidential election, 2008

Ghanaian general election, 2008

← 2004 7 and 28 December 2008 and 2 January 2009 2012 →
Nominee John Atta Mills Nana Akufo-Addo Party NDC New Patriotic Popular vote 4,521,032 4,480,446 Percentage 50.23% 49.77%
2008 General election results map by region.   NDC   NPP
President before election John Kufuor New Patriotic President-elect John Atta Mills NDC

John Kufuor
New Patriotic

John Atta Mills
NDC

General elections were held in Ghana on 7 December 2008. Since no candidate received more than 50% of the votes, a run-off election was held on 28 December 2008 between the two candidates who received the most votes, Nana Akufo-Addo and John Atta Mills. Mills was certified as the victor in the run-off election on January 3, 2009, by a margin of less than one percent. It is to date the closest election in Ghanaian history.

On 21 December 2006, former Vice-President John Atta Mills, who unsuccessfully ran as the National Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate in 2000 and 2004, was overwhelmingly elected by NDC as its candidate for the 2008 presidential election.

Former Foreign Minister Nana Akufo-Addo was elected as the 2008 presidential candidate of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) at a party congress on 23 December 2007. Although he fell short of the required 50%, the second-place candidate, John Alan Kyeremanten, conceded defeat and backed Akufo-Addo.

The stakes of the election were raised by the discovery of oil in Ghana and an expectation for incoming oil revenues to begin in 2010. Additionally, allegations of electoral fraud that resulted in violence following elections in Kenya and Zimbabwe and military coups d'état in Mauritania and Guinea caused international election monitors to hope the Ghanaian elections would refurbish the image of constitutional democracy in Africa.