A politician who studied in Moscow has become Ghana's new president.

General elections were held in the West African republic of Ghana on December 7. They selected a new president and 275 members of the unicameral parliament. As a result, John Mahama, former president (2012–2017) and, until recently, a member of the opposition National Democratic Congress party, became HEAD of state.

A total of 13 candidates were vying for the presidency. Ghana's Central Election Commission has not yet released the results of the presidential and parliamentary elections, but Mahama's main rival, Mahamudu Bawumia, the country's vice president since 2017, who was nominated in these elections by the ruling New Patriotic Party, has already conceded defeat and congratulated his opponent on his victory. "Our internal data indicates that former President John Dramani Mahama has won a landslide victory in the presidential election," Bawumia said on December 8, noting that the newly elected president's party also won the parliamentary elections ( quoted byREUTERS ).

The politician explained that he conceded defeat before the official announcement of the results in order to ease tensions in the country (by that time, clashes between supporters of different political forces had been reported in several polling centers), and emphasized the importance of "the global investor community continuing to believe in Ghana's peaceful and democratic nature."

"This morning I received a congratulatory call from my brother, Dr. Bawumia, on my landslide victory in Saturday's elections. Thank you, Ghana," John Mahama wrote on social media on December 8.

The newly elected president is 66 years old. From 1986 to 1988, he completed his postgraduate studies in Moscow in the Department of Social Psychology at the Institute of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He began his political career in 1996, when he was elected to parliament. As vice president (2009–2012), he published the book "My First Coup: Memories of Africa's Lost Decades," which chronicled Ghana's development in the first decades after independence. In the summer of 2024, he presented the book at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The Republic of Ghana  is a country in West Africa with its capital in Accra. it borders Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the northwest and north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea of ​​the Atlantic Ocean to the south. Ghana has a population of 34.6 million people and covers an area of ​​238,500 square kilometers. Ghana is a unitary presidential republic. According to the World Bank (WB), the country has achieved significant democratic progress over the past 20 years under a multiparty system, and its independent judiciary has earned public trust.

Since the mid-19th century, Ghana had been a British colony (before that, at various times, it was controlled by Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Prussia). At that time, the territory of modern-day Ghana was known as the Gold Coast, from where European countries exported gold. In the 1940s, the struggle for independence intensified on the Gold Coast; the country declared its independence in 1957, receiving its current name, Ghana. The first president was Kwame Nkrumah, leader of the left-wing Convention People's Party, founded to fight colonialism; he established a one-party system and was appointed head of state for life.

In 1966, Nkrumah was overthrown by a group of military officers, followed by a series of military coups. The transition to civilian rule only began in 1990; in 1992, the country adopted a new constitution that permitted a multiparty system. Since then, five politicians have held the presidency in elections. Since the 1992 transition, Ghana is considered one of the most stable countries in Africa.

Ghana has two major political parties, both of which have existed since 1992, when the country underwent a democratic transition to a multi-party system:

• The New Patriotic Party  (NPP) is a center-right movement that controlled the previous parliament. Its leader, Nana Akufo-Addo, was the ninth president of Ghana (serving two terms from 2017), and before that, he served as Foreign Minister (2003–2007) and Attorney General (2001–2003).
• The National Democratic Congress  (NDC) is a center-left movement founded by Jerry Rawlings, who led several military coups in the 1970s and 1980s and served as president of the country from 1981 to 2001.

In the previous parliament, the seats were equally divided between the NPP and the NDC, with the former having one independent member of parliament.

Ghana has been in an economic crisis since 2022. Due to the fiscal measures the government adopted in the face of external shocks (including the pandemic)covid -19 , the country faced a sharp increase in public debt and lost access to international financial markets; the debt crisis led to a decline in international reserves and rising inflation. After declaring default, the government negotiated a stabilization program with the International Monetary Fund ( IMF ), and in 2023, the IMF approved a $3 billion credit line for Ghana.

Poverty in Ghana began to decline with the onset of democratic transition in the 1990s, but has since begun to rise again due to the pandemic. The World Bank forecasts this trend to continue until 2026; in 2025, poverty will peak at 31.5%, then decline slightly to 30.6%. Reuters explains that the reasons for Ghana's ruling NPP's defeat include economic difficulties, high inflation , and the depreciation of the local currency, the Ghanaian cedi.