64° M/SUNNY, ACCRA, Ghana Ghana vote photo finish
Last Modified: Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 4:25 a.m.
Opposition leader John Atta Mills was declared Ghana's next president Saturday in a peaceful ballot that secured the West African nation's place as a beacon of democracy on a volatile continent.
The country is one of the few in Africa to successfully transfer power twice from one legitimately elected leader to another, proof that Ghana's democracy has truly matured after an era of coups and dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s.
But tensions still ran high in what became the closest vote in Ghana's history, and some feared violence could erupt as it did earlier this year in Kenya -- an East African nation that also was a model of stability until a similarly tight 2007 ballot unleashed weeks of tribal bloodshed.
Ghana's ruling party candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, had threatened to reject the results, but withdrew his court challenges and conceded peacefully.
President John Kufuor appealed to both sides to accept the outcome and his call appeared aimed at his own governing party.
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