Former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan worked behind the scenes to convince Nana Akufo-Addo to concede after the run-off.

According to Peter Pham, an Africa expert at James Madison University in Virginia, Annan was in Ghana on Thursday working behind the scenes to calm tensions, and called on the ruling New Patriotic party(NPP) to accept the result.

Tensions were high on Friday amid a partial rerun in one constituency after last Sunday’s second-round presidential vote, and some feared violence could erupt as it did last year in Kenya. That East African state was also seen as a model of stability until a similarly tight ballot unleashed weeks of tribal bloodshed in 2007.

The NPP candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, had threatened to reject the second-round results, but withdrew his court challenges and conceded peacefully on Saturday. He said it was to promote national unity.