Peaceful elections deepen democracy in Ghana

As the hot sun beat down on Independence Square in Accra, Ghana's capital, on January 7, 2009, thousands of Ghanaians watched as Professor John Evans Atta Mills was inaugurated as their new president. This third peaceful transition of power in Ghana was even more remarkable because of the high potential for unrest during the electoral process.

Most Ghanaian election watchers had predicted a very close and intense contest between the two leading political parties with the possibility of a third resurgent party doing well to throw the election into a run-off. The polarized political climate combined with the lack of public trust in the national electoral body's independence and competence further heightened the potential for conflict was very high.

To build confidence in the electoral process and check electoral fraud, USAID supported a coalition of local organizations - the Coalition of Domestic Electoral Observers (CODEO) and National Democratic Institute (NDI) - in deploying observers to ensure a strong observer presence at polling stations countrywide. The coalition trained 3,000 people in election observation. On the election-days, the coalition stationed the observers at randomly selected polling stations to report election activities to CODEO headquarters using cell phones. For the first time in Ghana , the coalition used parallel vote tabulation (PVT), which served as a check and balance to official results and complemented the coalition's regular domestic election observers.

As electoral watchers had predicted, the poll results of the presidential election were very close, leading to a run-off.

Professor Mills won the run-off by a margin of one-half of one percent. The PVT results mirrored the national electoral body's polling figures. International observer groups also described the election described as free and fair.

The strong observer presence provided an additional source of information for reporting on election-day activities. Even more importantly, the observer presence provided reassurance to the public that independent groups were tracking polling station results. The PVT provided yet another layer of transparency, enabling political parties and the electorate to readily accept the results of the elections.

This peaceful election and successful transfer of power have earned Ghana an enviable record, deepened the foundation for democracy in Ghana, and have become historic events for the African continent.