Accra, Jan. 3, GNA - Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), on Saturday declared Former Vice President, Professor John Evans Atta Mills as the winner of Presidential Election 2008. Prof. Mills Presidential Candidate of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), obtained 4,521,032 votes, representing 50.23 per cent, of the valid votes cast while Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Presidential Candidate of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) got 4,480,446 votes, representing 49.77 per cent.

"Ladies and gentlemen on the basis of the official results given, it is my duty to declare Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, as the President-Elect of Ghana," Dr, Afari-Gyan declared at a press conference to officially announce the winner of Election 2008.

On allegation that votes was deducted from or added to the number of votes obtained by either the NPP or NDC in Ashanti or Volta Region, Dr Afari-Gyan debunked the allegation, saying "nothing was added or deducted". He said after careful examination of materials submitted by the two political parties - NDC and NPP and the nature of evidence provided to support their claims; the EC noted that the NDC failed to submit complete set of polling-station-by-polling station declaration results forms to enable a re-examination of the collated figures for the constituencies in Ashanti that they had complained about.

In respect of the materials submitted by the NPP in the nature of evidence, Dr Afari-Gyan said the Commission found out that; some of the issues raised bothered on criminality and, therefore, fell outside the competence of the EC.

"In the purely electoral matters, the Commission did not find the evidence provided to be sufficient to invalidate the results. "In view of these findings about the complaints of the two parties, the results as previously tallied from the 229 constituencies remain unchanged.accordingly the results of the runoff in the Tain constituency, which was held on January 2 2009, have been added to the national tally," Dr Afari-Gyan stated.

The EC Chairman was flanked by Mr David Adeenze-Kanga, Deputy Chairman in-Charge of Finance and Administration; Mr Kwadwo Sarfo-Kantanka, Deputy Chairman in Charge of Operations and other Commissions members and directors. Dr Afari-Gyan descried the process leading to the final declaration of the President-Elect as long and arduous, "but by God's grace we have finally arrived". He commended Prof. Mills and Nana Akufo-Addo for personally conducting themselves all along in a manner befitting the high office that they sought.

Officials and supporters of the NDC, who thronged the EC premises to witness the official declaration burst into wild cheers as the EC Chairman declared Prof. Mills the winner.