Ghana's opposition leader John Atta Mills was declared the winner of a closely fought presidential election run-off on Saturday, sweeping his party back to power after eight years.
The poll raised tensions in the country and challenges by both main parties threatened to mar an election seen as a chance to bolster Africa's democratic credentials after flawed ballots elsewhere.
Results of voting in a final constituency on Friday showed Mr Mills, of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), narrowly defeated Nana Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), which lost its parliamentary majority in an election last month.
"I want to assure everybody that I will be president for all. There will be no discrimination," Mr Mills said in a victory speech to thousands of NDC supporters who thronged the streets around his office in the west African country's capital, Accra.
"Our nation is at a crossroads and we must work together to build it peacefully," Mr Akufo-Addo told a news conference. Outside, angry NPP crowds threatened journalists.
Ghana's political stability has attracted growing numbers of foreign investors as it prepares to produce oil in late 2010.
The centre-left NDC has promised change after eight years of NPP rule, although analysts say there are few policy differences.
Electoral Commission chairman Kwadwo Afari-Gyan said Mr Mills won 50.23 per cent in the run-off against 49.77 per cent for Mr Akufo-Addo.
Neither candidate won a majority in the December 7th poll and run-off voting in all but one of 230 constituencies last Sunday was inconclusive, so the election was decided by Friday's voting in the rural constituency of Tain.
The NPP, which lost its parliamentary majority in the election but remains in power until outgoing president John Kufuor steps down on January 7th, boycotted the Tain vote over security concerns. Mr Kufuor has served the maximum two terms he is allowed. His pro-market rule has seen Ghana's economy become one of the most attractive investment destinations in the region. - (Reuters)