Managing Election- Relation Violence for Democratic Stability in Ghana Northern region together with the deployment of joint military­police patrols in order to bring the escalating violence under control. There were also violent clashes in the Volta, Ashanti, and Greater Accra regions, though not to the scale witnessed in the three northern regions of Ghana. Perhaps the most disturbing threat was that issued by ex­President J.J. Rawlings, founder of the NDC, who complained that the previous election was rigged by the NPP and proceeded to warn that he and his party would not sit down for the NPP to rig the 2008 elections. He declared his party's preparedness to fight to the finish to secure victory for the NDC(The Accra Daily Mail, 21 August 2008). A major threat to peace on election day was posed by the attempts of some disgruntled individuals in some parts of the country to snatch ballot boxes during or just after voting(Daily Guide, December 2008; Ghana News Agency, December 2008). There were also allegations of vote rigging, especially in the Volta and Ashanti regions. Given the questionable nature of results that were recorded in these two regions, such allegations were not completely unfounded(Jockers et al., 2009). Indeed allegations, of vote rigging nearly plunged the country into turmoil after the announcement of official results by the Electoral Commission (EC) was postponed several times. These postponements prompted scores of party supporters of both leading parties to gather near the EC Headquarters threatening to attack the facility on successive days(The Guardian, 2008). Although Ghana's 2008 elections managed to deliver a winner in the person of Professor John Atta-Mills, and even though the election was widely hailed by the Electoral Commission 48