On January 7, 2009 Professor J.E.A. Mills succeeded Mr. J.A. Kufuor as the third President of the Fourth Republic of Ghana. The Constitution provides for a maximum of two four-year terms for President. So far, the electorate has sanctioned the stay in office of the maximum term allowed by the Constitution to the first two Presidents - Flt Lt. J.J. Rawlings and Mr. J.A. Kufuor. The re-election bids of these two have been relatively easy. On the other hand, the 'end of term' contests in 2000 and 2008 were bitterly fought with important consequences for the economy.

The economic outcomes of the 2000 and 2008 election years bear several similarities. In particular, both years recorded significantly large fiscal deficits. These large fiscal deficits occurred on account of spending excesses that have become a characteristic feature of hotly contested presidential and parliamentary elections in the Fourth Republic of Ghana. Moreover, high private consumption and investment expenditures in these years - themselves election-induced - exacerbated the public spending excesses resulting in among others:
. accelerated depreciation of the cedi;
. rising inflationary expectations; and
. large depletions of international reserves.

There were significant differences as well in terms of causes and severity. The earlier crisis in year 2000 was triggered by severe adverse price developments in the tradeables sector in 1999. The realized core terms of trade based on world market prices of the three principal commodities in Ghana's international trade - cocoa, gold, and oil - declined sharply. Prices of the export commodities, cocoa and gold, plummeted while the price of the import, oil, sky rocketed. This marked an about turn of the benign to mildly positive development that had occurred the year before in 1998. Perhaps, reflecting the sharpness of the deterioration in the core terms of trade, the financial crisis of year 2000 was the more severe of the two. The rate of inflation reached 40 percent by year-end and in the foreign exchange market the cedi went into a free fall losing half its value against the US dollar - depreciating from the equivalent of GHc0.35/US dollar at the end of December 1999 to GHc0.70/US dollar at the end of December 2000, a year later.