Ghana's epic nail-biter of an election has finally ended with opposition leader John Atta Mills being declared the winner by the narrowest of margins: barely 40,000 votes out of 9 million, or less than 0.5 percent of votes from the past week's run-off.

Virtually everybody was expecting a close race, but the contest got tighter and increasingly acrimonious as both rival camps sensed power was within their reach. As the vote went down to the wire, to be decided with delayed voting held in one final constituency on Jan 2, the ruling New National Party (NNP) announced a boycott and launched legal proceedings to postpone the poll and freeze the announcement of results. 
 
After a year that has seen electoral bloodshed in Kenya and Zimbabwe one analyst who has followed the vote closely warned that incidents of violence during the polls indicated Ghana "may be coming close to that abyss of no-return".
 
Yet shortly after the Electoral Commission announced results on Saturday, Akufo-Addo conceded defeat, congratulated Mills and both candidates were stressing the need for cooperation and consensus between their two parties.

What a difference a few hours makes - although Whether they are able to make that promise a reality for the party rank and file caught up in the bitter rivalries of the past few months, only time will tell.
 
So what was all the fuss about? By the most alarming interpretations, Ghana has stepped back from the brink of chaos. Others say it was just healthy competition.
 
Some observers say the simple fact the country's institutions, especially its Electoral Commission, were able to cope with such a tense, tight race and ensure both sides respected the results, is proof of the deep roots democracy has in Ghana. That is a point of pride for many Ghanaians aware of their country's history as the first sub-Saharan colony to achieve independence and one of the first to adopt democratic politics under outspoken former coup-leader Jerry Rawlings, who appointed Mills as his vice-president in the 1990s.
 
So is the bitter wrangling between the two main parties a "slur on Ghana's democratic credentials", as one analyst put it? Or should the country be proud that even such a hard-fought election should end without widespread violence? Do the past month's elections show Ghana's democracy is alive and well, or expose its weaknesses? How does it compare with elections elsewhere in Africa? And, given many people say there is little difference between the manifestoes of the centre-right NPP and Mills's centre-left National Democratic Congress (NDC), was the election worth the risk?

(Picture: Supporters of Mills of opposition NDC party celebrate their candidate's win after elections in Accra. Luc Gnago / Reuters)

Fifteen years ago this month, Guinea’s late ruler Lansana Conte made clear what form democracy would take under his rule.

We answered a summons to a late night news conference to hear the result of his first multiparty election, speeding through silent streets where armoured vehicles waited in the shadows. The interior minister announced that ballots from the east, the opposition’s stronghold, had been cancelled because of irregularities. Conte had therefore won 50.93 percent of the vote. There was no need for a run-off because he had an absolute majority.

The show was over.

We rushed off to file our stories at the press centre, set up helpfully by a government under pressure to show the world it was ready for fair elections. The press centre was gone, the lines cut. In the morning, fighter jets swept over Conakry in case the message had not been clear already.

There were more elections, there was occasional turmoil on the streets, sometimes bloodshed. At one point Conte was almost overthrown, but he managed to hold on until his death from illness on Monday.

In a matter of hours, the army - Conte’s real constituency – made clear he would be succeeded by one of his own instead of any of the civilian politicians who prospered under the system over which he kept such strong control.

Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, the head of the junta, was the first soldier to announce the coup on state radio. A Guinean website said the choice was made by drawing lots. Camara’s promises - heard many before times in Africa - are to fight corruption, to hold elections in a set period – in this case two years - and not to stand himself.

Thousands of Guineans have come out to cheer, hoping for a clean break from the Conte era. But thousands once cheered Conte as a reformer. His 1984 coup followed the death of Sekou Toure, the independence era leader who became paranoid, cruel and isolated during more than a quarter century in power.

It is interesting to compare Guinea and Ghana, the first former European colonies in West Africa to win independence - Ghana in 1957 and Guinea in 1958.

In recent years, Ghana seems to have escaped its own cycle of coups and counter coups that brought ruin for decades. On Sunday, it will hold a presidential election run-off after a first round that set an example to the continent. The two candidates both appear to have a genuine chance of winning. Investment has been flowing in and living standards have, overall, been rising.

Look at the World Bank data and the winner is very clear. In the decade between 1997 and 2007, Guinea’s per capita income, in current U.S. dollars, dropped from $500 to $400. Ghana’s has risen from $370 to $590.

Will Guinea have a better chance of success this time? Is Western-style democracy appropriate in a country carved up by colonialists across ethnic lines? Is there a better alternative?

What should the world do? Western countries were never particularly vocal about Conte’s version of democracy. Will they be as critical of the junta as they have been of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, or do different standards apply?

Kenya’s power-sharing government was only born after weeks of election violence that killed 1,300 people. Zimbabwe’s power sharing agreement is yet to bear fruit as southern Africa’s former breadbasket crumbles into economic ruin.

So will power sharing in Central African Republic, where one of Africa’s most forgotten conflicts has been simmering for more than half a decade, fare any better?

After 10 days of United Nations-backed talks, President Francois Bozize, a former army chief who seized power in a 2003 coup, has agreed with rebel and opposition leaders, including the man he deposed, to form a consensus government to rule until the next scheduled presidential elections in 2010.

The stakes are high. Despite its mineral riches, which include diamonds and uranium, Central African Republic remains prostrated by poverty and languishes near the bottom of the U.N. human development index. The country and its people are scarred by fighting before, during and after the 2003 coup that included mass rapes — used as a weapon of war — torture and killings now being investigated by the International Criminal Court. Low-intensity northern insurgencies since then have driven tens of thousands of civilians into the bush as they flee rebel and bandit raids, and government army counter-attacks.

From Sudan in the east, gangs of poachers marauding over the border have decimated CAR’s historically rich wildlife of elephants and big game, which used to draw the world’s rich and famous on hunting trips. Some conservation groups have even turned to hiring South African mercenaries to try to curb the poachers. From the north and east, fierce Chadian and Sudanese fighters raid over the frontier, while feared highway bandits known locally as “zaraguinas” prey on travellers and villagers alike, even striking over the western border into Cameroon to rob and seize children for ransom from wealthy cattle-raising tribes.This year, Ugandan rebels of Joseph Kony’s notorious Lord’s Resistance Army have sacked villages in the remote southeast corner of CAR.

Against this backdrop of endemic violence, can Central African Republic’s power-sharing initiative deliver lasting peace? Can the former enemies, President Bozize and the rebel warlords, “bury the hatchet of war” and deliver the long-suffering nation and its people from “Satan and his demons”, as former President Ange-Felix Patasse put it?
 
What do you think?

As Ghanaians get set to elect a new president and parliament on Sunday, there seems to be as much attention on what a new leader will mean for Ghana as on what message Ghana will send the world about the state of Africa today. After a dismal year with elections rigged or marred by violence in Kenya, Zimbabwe and most recently Nigeria, to name but a few, Africa could do with a pick-me-up.

Despite some wobbles and sporadic violence in northern Ghana where several people were killed in the early stages of the campaign, preparations for Sunday’s elections have gone relatively smoothly.

Sure, there have been arguments over voter registration, and worries voter lists may not be perfect. But politicians, civil society groups and even local hip-life artist Obour have joined a campaign against violence and to ensure electoral disputes are dealt with by the courts.

Yet some people worry too much power has been concentrated in the presidency under the administration of John Kufuor, who is standing down after the maximum two terms in office, and fear the capacity of the courts to judge electoral complaints impartially may be compromised.

These will be the fifth national elections since the charismatic former coup-leader Jerry Rawlings introduced multiparty democracy in 1992. They follow Ghana’s celebrations last year of 50 years of independence and hosting this year of the African Cup of Nations soccer tournament.

A successful election, free from violence and in which all candidates accept the result, would be a further boost for Ghana as it hopes for more rapid economic growth once offshore oil fields start pumping in late 2010.
 
So what does it mean for Ghana? And what does it mean for Africa? Would good elections here make a difference to the rest of the continent? Tell us what you think.

From a distance it is always hard to picture just how hard life is in Zimbabwe and to imagine how much worse it can get. For so long we have been writing about economic collapse, inflation statistics beyond comprehension, the fact that at least a quarter of the country has fled to seek work abroad and that life expectancy has tumbled.

Commentators have long spoken of the dangers of a possible ‘meltdown’. The signs of what that might look like have grown stronger this week.

The death toll from the worst cholera epidemic in recent records is near 500 – and possibly double – with shortages of water in Harare and elsewhere and a health system hopelessly ill equipped to cope. Not so long ago, one of the region’s more prosperous countries would probably have been able to prevent an outbreak of cholera and would certainly have been able to treat it.

Unprecedented clashes on Monday between what the army described as “indisciplined” soldiers and Zimbabweans have added to fears the situation could get out of hand. The army understandably said it was worried by the troubles, put down by police. As too many other African countries have found out, angry soldiers can prove a danger to everyone.

Banks are so short of cash that queuing for almost worthless notes has become a full time occupation for some of those lucky enough to – in theory at least – have jobs. But the amount of cash the banks can give out each day is often not enough to buy a loaf of bread.

President Robert Mugabe’s government says the health system and economy are foundering because of sanctions imposed by Western powers it says are trying to oust him for seizing thousands of white-owned farms and redistributing the land to black Zimbabweans.

Mugabe’s critics, such as opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, say it is his policies that have ruined Zimbabwe.

But no matter who is to blame, the situation looks dangerously as though it could get beyond anyone’s control.

Should the crisis force Tsvangirai to join Mugabe in the power-sharing government they had agreed to - even if he doesn’t get all the posts that he wanted? Should Mugabe give way to the opposition leader’s demands? Tsvangirai’s MDC said talks between the parties on the unity government would resume in two weeks. Is that soon enough? Does Zimbabwe have any choice but a deal between the two old rivals?

Members of Guinea-Bissau’s unruly armed forces have blotted the military’s record again with another attack against the country’s political institutions. Early on Sunday, Nov. 23, renegade soldiers, their faces hooded, sprayed the Bissau residence of President Joao Bernardo “Nino” Vieira with machine-gun and rocket-propelled grenade fire. The president survived unhurt this latest apparent attempt to topple him.

But The attack underlined the fragility of the small, cashew nut-exporting West African nation, one of the poorest in the world and a former Portuguese colony which has suffered a history of bloody coups, mutinies and uprisings since it won independence in 1974 after a bush war led by Amilcar Cabral. The assault followed parliamentary elections on Nov. 16 which donors were hoping would restore stability and put in place a new government capable of resisting the serious threat posed by powerful Latin American cocaine-trafficking cartels who use Guinea-Bissau as a staging post to smuggle drugs to Europe.

How can a little-known African country like Guinea-Bissau, prostrated by poverty, its government and military undermined by the corrupting influence of multi-million dollar drug-trafficking, dig itself out of underdevelopment?

What should foreign donors do? Invest hundreds of millions of dollars to back security reforms to downsize and modernise the bloated army and struggling police and fund development programmes — even though aid workers say the government and state often appear barely functional and incapable of presenting or implementing programmes.

Or, at a time of global economic crisis when financial resources are stretched and Africa seems filled with conflicts, election disputes and refugees, (Congo, Darfur, Chad, Somalia, Zimbabwe), should the international community look for more deserving (or strategic) cases than little Guinea-Bissau?

It was not hard to see which of Zimbabwe’s rivals felt he had come out on top from the regional summit at the weekend.

President Robert Mugabe described the leaders as “persuasive”. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said he was “shocked and saddened”.

Leaders of the Southern African Development Community demanded immediate implementation of Zimbabwe’s power-sharing deal and said the rivals should share the powerful Home Affairs ministry to end weeks of deadlock – a proposal quickly rejected by Tsvangirai.

Anyone hoping the summit might be able to bring Zimbabwe’s increasingly desperate crisis closer to a resolution would have been disappointed.

Instead of highlighting a strong position, it showed up more than anything why the region’s leaders are unlikely to ever be able to force Zimbabwe’s rivals to implement a power-sharing deal that now looks in growing doubt.

What chance is there now for the power-sharing deal? Should Tsvangirai accept the verdict of the regional leaders and share the Home Affairs post? Should Mugabe form a government alone if Tsvangirai does not go along?

What do you think?

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has sworn in two vice-presidents ahead of talks on power-sharing. He has also allocated important ministries to his ZANU-PF parties.

It’s a familiar pattern.

Mugabe imposes his will and MorganTsvangirai’s opposition cries foul.

Will former South African President Thabo Mbeki be able to mediate a breakthrough? After being ousted as president by his ANC party, he might not be so confident to be seen walking hand in hand with Mugabe at the airport as he has in the past.

As every twist and turn in the talks is analysed, the word endangered is increasingly used. Endangered talks.

But what about ordinary Zimbabweans? They seem more endangered every time the formation of a cabinet is delayed by accusations flying from one side to another.

Will inflational jump to astronomical levels again? Yes. Will food shortages worsen, probably.  Will Zimbabweans see their country on its feet again? It is not likely to be soon.

The words of Western leaders have long been ineffective and in any case, they have their own financial collapse to worry about right now. African countries appear no more inclined to take action than before.

In the meantime, it seems Mugabe is directing the show again.

How long can this go on?

South African President Thabo Mbeki did not get to bask long in the success of securing Zimbabwe’s power-sharing deal before finding himself in the firing line again at home.

Now his most strident foes - who can be found within his ruling African National Congress - say he should be pushed from office after a judge made clear he saw political interference in the corruption trial against ANC leader and longstanding Mbeki rival Jacob Zuma.

The plan by prosecutors to challenge the court’s decision to throw out the trial looks set to further stoke political tensions. The ANC executive committee is due to meet this weekend.

Zuma has said the ANC should stay united ahead of the election in April, when Mbeki has to step down anyway, and was quoted as saying that wasting energy on trying to force the president out sooner was like “beating a dead snake”.

South Africa’s economy has grown steadily with Mbeki in power, although that growth is slowing now, but the president’s critics say only the rich have benefited and accuse him of failures over everything from power shortages to xenophobic attacks to crime to AIDS.

Until recently, Mbeki’s soft diplomatic tack on Zimbabwe had been branded a failure by many too.

Has Mbeki had a fair hearing? What will his legacy be as the man who followed Nelson Mandela to the presidency? Should he go sooner rather than later?

What do you think?

There have been so many swings from optimism to pessimism and back again, that Zimbabweans might find it hard to believe there finally appears to be a power-sharing deal after two months of talks.

According to both sides, President Robert Mugabe has agreed to share power with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai after 28 years of rule that concentrated power in his own hands.

The details are not clear yet, but it appears to be something of a coup for South African President Thabo Mbeki, whose critics had long said he was too soft on Mugabe.

As Martin Rupiyah, Director of African Research at Cranfield University in Britain, put it, though “I don’t think we are out of the woods yet,” pointing in particular to uncertainty over the role of the powerful security forces.

Plenty of questions remain - not least over how two men who have long made their animosity plain might be able to work together.

What do you think the chances of success are? Who will be the real winner? Will this be able to pull Zimbabwe out of its catastrophic decline?