ANKARA

Nana Akufo-Addo has won the second four-year term as president of Ghana with 51.59% of the vote, the electoral commission announced on Wednesday.

His longtime rival former President John Mahama, 62, came second with 47.36% of the vote, according to the Electoral Commission Of Ghana.

Akufo-Addo, 76, becomes the 8th president of Ghana's Fourth Republic. It is the third time that the two men clashed in a presidential election in the West African country after the 2012 and 2016 elections.

Akufo-Addo has been in office since January 2017. He previously served as attorney general from 2001 to 2003 and as foreign minister from 2003 to 2007.

Last Friday, the longtime presidential candidacy rivals signed a peace pact to respect the verdict that will come out of the polls.

Ghana is the most peaceful country in West Africa and third on the entire continent, according to the 2020 Global Peace Index Report run by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP).

The country's electoral commission put in place thorough COVID-19 protocols to ensure the people's safety during the electoral process, such as face masks, physical distancing, handwashing and hand sanitizers in all polling stations.