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Ghanaian presidential candidates commit to peace ahead of polls

Xinhua, December 2, 2016 Adjust font size:

All seven presidential candidates in Ghana on Thursday committed themselves to peace before, during and after next Wednesday's elections.

The peace accord presided by the National Peace Council is meant to ensure that political parties, their leaders and supporters accept the outcome of the polls.

"I pledge my utmost commitment to peace," President John Dramani Mahama declared before a high-powered international observer mission, comprising the United Nations, sub-regional bloc Economic Community of West African States (ECOWA), and the Commonwealth.

Mahama, who is seeking re-election on the ticket of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), stressed that as president, he had a lot to lose if the country experienced violence.

"No amount of political power is worth shedding one drop of blood of any Ghanaian," the president maintained.

Pledging peace, leader of the largest opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) Nana Akufo-Addo called on the government and the security agencies to move beyond "rhetoric of peace."

He said the government, the Electoral Commission (EC) and the police, more than any other stakeholder, had the responsibility of ensuring free and fair elections.

Presiding over the peace accord was former South African president Thabo Mbeki, who heads the Commonwealth Observer Mission, and Chair of the ECOWAS Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Endit