Ghana Election Goes to a Runoff

Voters in Ghana will have to go to the polls again to decide their next president, as neither major candidate received the 50% in Sunday’s election. Governing-party candidate Nana Akufo-Addo scored 49.13%, with key opposition leader John Atta Mills pulling in a close 47.92%. The next vote was scheduled for Dec. 28; observers praised the first round as peaceful, the BBC reports.

With nearly 70% voter turnout, Ghana’s fifth set of democratic elections went smoothly, a fact organizers hailed as proving Africa can hold elections devoid of violence. But more than 200,000 ballots were rejected, comprising a greater percentage of the vote than that received by the third-place candidate.