Two political parties claim early lead as Ghanaians await poll results

As Ghanaians anxiously awaited the results of presidential and parliamentary elections, the two top political parties on Tuesday claimed victory, even as the Electoral Commission warned parties and the media against declaring results.

Me Jean Mensa, the head of the Electoral Commission, said the agency is the only one allowed by law to declare any results.

However, the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) party each told supporters on Tuesday that they were in the lead.

The NPP fronted President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as its candidate in the election on Monday, while former President John Dramani Mahama ran on the NDC ticket.

The opposition NDC claimed it had won many of the parliamentary seats that were occupied by NPP members, and said it was sure of winning the presidential polls.

The party cautioned its supporters against premature celebrations as the party continued to “make strides in the 2020 General Election”, but urged supporters to remain vigilant.

Mr Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, NDC’s director of elections, said on Tuesday that even though results trickling in showed a positive sign for the party, counting was still in progress.

“Preliminary results trickling in shows exciting outlook but our victory is not complete until the last ballot is counted and collated.

“These preliminary results can be seen from the provisional parliamentary results so far and some significant seats that we have swapped, some for the first time in the history of the fourth republic since 1992.”

In response, Mr John Boadu, the secretary general of the NPP, spoke in Accra saying that results collated by the party indicated that it had won both the presidential and parliamentary elections.

“We are confident of this and await the declaration from the Electoral Commission, as it is constitutionally mandated,” he said, adding that publicly declared results at the constituency level show that NPP had taken an early lead.