Meet Ghana's new president, Nana Akufo-Addo

After two failed bids,
Nana Akufo-Addo has
managed to clinch
Ghana's presidency.
He had long been seen
as an aloof elitist,

 but
now many Ghanaians
hope the 72-year-old
will be the one to fix
the economy and
create jobs.
Ghanaian President John
Mahama called opposition
leader Nana Akufo-Addo
late Friday to concede
defeat following a hotly
contested election, party
and election officials said.
"Yes, he (Mahama) has
conceded defeat," George
Lawson of Mahama's New
Democratic Congress (NDC)
party told the AFP news
agency.
 Akufo-Addo also confirmed
it in a tweet.
Akufo-Addo secured 53.85
percent of the vote, whereas
President John Dramani
Mahama received 44.4
percent, according to the
election commission.
In what was widely seen as
his last chance to clinch
Ghana's presidency, Nana
Akufo-Addo has been swept
into office by a majority of
Ghanaian voters desirous
of change. After two failed
attempts, the 72-year-old
veteran politician managed
to defeat charismatic
incumbent John
Mahama and will now
take charge of the West
African nation that his
father ruled from 1970 to
1972.
In previous campaigns,
Akufo-Addo had struggled
to fight his image as an
aloof elitist.
Born in the country's
eastern region, he is related
to three of the "Big
Six" politicians who are
considered to be Ghana's
founding fathers. He was
educated at a prestigious
British secondary school
and spent some time
studying at a college in
Oxford.
The man to bring
about change?
"In the 2008 and 2012
elections, I read and heard
that he was perceived to be
an arrogant intellectual. It
was very hard for him to
establish contact to the
population," Burkhardt
Hellemann, head of the
Ghana office of the
German Konrad Adenauer
political foundation, told
DW before the poll
Akufo-Addo's claim that he
had lost the 2012 polls
because of electoral fraud
also did not go down well,
even with parts of his own
NPP party, after Ghana's
highest court and election
observers dismissed the
allegations.
He finally accepted a
Supreme Court verdict that
upheld John Mahama's
presidency. During this
year's campaigns, Akufo-
Addo's promises fell on
fertile ground with voters
tired of a sluggish economy,
a never-ending energy
crisis and a number of
corruption scandals.
Economic growth dropped
by ten percent between
2011 and 2015.
"His visions and his
statements seem to be more
appealing to the people,"
priest and election observer
Clement Adjei told DW
during campaigning.
"If you look at the
atmosphere, it seems as if
the majority is in for a
change because of the
hardships many Ghanaians
go through," he said.
Prospect of more jobs
and economic growth
Akufo-Addo ran on a
campaign ticket promising a
series of measures to
stimulate the economy and
increase employment.
"We will expand the
economy and strengthen
Ghanaian enterprises and
the private sector. We also
want to devote a lot of our
energy into reviving the
agricultural sector. That is
the way forward to creating
jobs," he told DW a day
before the elections.
"We are going to cut out a
lot of the waste and
corruption of the Mahama
era and make sure that the
finances of our country are
on a healthy footing,"
Akufo-Addo said.
"We will welcome it if he
can bring work to the
youth. If he brings us work,
we'll work so we'll be free,"
a supporter waiting in front
of Akufo-Addo's Accra home
told a DW correspondent
while unofficial results from
the election were trickling
in.
Akufo-Addo will be sworn in
as Ghana's next president in
January 2017. But it remains
to be seen if he will be able
to run for a constitutionally
allowed second term in 2020
- as he will then be 76 years
old.