NANA AKUFO-ADDO, the long-serving leader of Ghana’s opposition, is determined to run again for president in 2016—so he declared before a boisterous crowd in the front garden of his home in Accra, the country’s capital. Even though the polls are two-and-a-half years away, it feels as if a starting-gun has been fired.Ghana has had six fair elections since 1992, with power twice changing hands between the two main parties, Mr Akufo-Addo’s New Patriotic Party (NPP) and President John Dramani Mahama’s National Democratic Congress (NDC).For Mr Mahama, Mr Akufo-Addo, now 70, is a familiar foe. Mr Mahama’s predecessor as president and NDC leader, John Atta Mills, defeated Mr Akufo-Addo, previously foreign minister, in the election of 2008. Mr Akufo-Addo then lost again in 2012, to Mr Mahama, after the latter had stepped up from vice-president to president following Mr Mills’s death in office earlier that year.Mr Akufo-Addo then withdrew to France and Britain to lick his wounds, returning home in March, having evidently decided that he was ready to do battle again. Few politicians in the NPP have his clout and national recognition, so he is favoured to fend off anyone within the party when nominations to bear the NPP standard are considered. If he gets it, could it be third time lucky in his bid for the nation’s top spot?The contest between the old rivals in 2016 may have begun...
From The Economist: Middle East and Africa
No comments:
Post a Comment