Mahama is the first vice president to take over the presidency from the death of his predecessor, John Atta Mills, and is the first head of state of Ghana to have been born after Ghana's independence. He was elected after December 2012 election to serve as full-time President. He contested re-election for a second term in the 2016 election, but lost to the New Patriotic Party candidate Nana Akufo-Addo, in 2012. This made him the first President in the history of Ghana to not have won a second term.