Ghana's VP and former president among 13 candidates for presidency

ACCRA (Reuters) -Ghana's Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia and ex-president John Dramani Mahama are among 13 candidates approved for the 2024 presidential poll, the electoral commission said on Friday.

Voters in the West African gold- and cocoa-producing nation head to the polls on Dec. 7 to elect a successor to President Nana Akufo-Addo, who will step down in January after serving the constitutionally mandated eight years.

Former president Mahama, 65, represents the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) party and Bawumia, a 60-year-old economist and former central banker, was picked by Akufo-Addo's ruling New Patriotic Party as its candidate.

No party has won more than two consecutive terms in government in Ghana's democratic history.

The commission said it had also accepted the candidacies of Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen, a former trade and industry minister who resigned from the ruling party to stand as an independent, Nana Kwame Bediako, a businessman competing for the first time for the top job, and Nana Akosua Frimpomaa, one of two women in the race.

On Tuesday, Mahama's NDC party held nationwide protests against alleged irregularities, saying the electoral commission had illegally transferred voters to different voting stations without their knowledge.

The electoral commission said it would review a petition submitted by the party at the end of the demonstrations and provide a response in the coming days.

The allegations dent the electoral authority's image when public confidence is low.

A July survey by pan-African research group Afrobarometer showed trust in Ghana's electoral commission at an historic low since confidence polls started in 1999.

(Reporting by Christian Akorlie and Maxwell Akalaare Adombila; Writing by Anait Miridzhanian;Editing by Ros Russell and Barbara Lewis)